


Homecoming

by Fontainebleau



Series: Where the Road Leads [3]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Bonding, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-10-07 07:19:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10355079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/pseuds/Fontainebleau
Summary: After the events at Rose Creek things can't go back to being the same, for anyone, but can they all find a new way to live?





	1. Chapter 1

‘See you, Goody,’ said Billy, swinging up into the saddle, eyes already on the road ahead. Goodnight’s heart warmed at his unemotional public farewell; their real leavetaking the previous night had been private, passionate and protracted. The wagons were already in line, surrounded by a bustle of last-minute loading, their escort assembling with more dignity out front of the hotel.

‘Here,’ he said and dipped a hand into his coat to bring out his flask and toss it up to him; Billy caught it, flashed the briefest of smiles and tucked it into his jacket. 

The sound of hooves and jingling spurs announced Vasquez and Teddy trotting along the street to join them. ‘Ready, Billy? Changed your mind about coming with us, Goody?’

Goodnight grinned. ‘For the thrill of the open trail? Desert nights, new towns brimming with promise?’

‘If only,’ said Vasquez. ‘Three weeks trailing along in the dust of the wagons, with Sam who will keep us in order.’

‘Give him my regards,’ said Goodnight, ‘and take care of Teddy here – don’t let him succumb to the lure of the big city.’

Teddy rolled his eyes, but Vasquez wheeled his horse and leaned down, face suddenly serious. ‘And you keep an eye on him for me, eh?’ 

It was no surprise to Goodnight that Faraday had stayed away from the morning’s departure: he was still Rose Creek’s hero, more than the rest of them together, and rightly so by anyone’s estimation, but since he moved out to the farm with Vasquez he was seen less and less in town, flinching from scrutiny and sympathy alike.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ll see he does alright.’ Vasquez nodded, then straightened up to follow the others to his place in the line.

Whips cracked, oxen strained their necks against the yoke and the small train began its slow creaking progress out of town, Billy pacing along by the lead wagon on his grey. Goodnight unhitched his mare and mounted up himself, turning her head in the opposite direction. To see them heading out up the incline and disappearing over the horizon in a haze of dust brought home to him both the smallness of the town in its tranquil valley, and the scale of the change they’d undergone. Almost two years since Bogue and his men were brought down – time enough to heal and to mend, but they were still feeling out this new life one step at a time. 

For Goodnight, the decision to stay and put down roots had been easier: recovery had been long and painful for him, and though he admitted it to no one, had left him with the first hint that summer must eventually turn to autumn, the whisper of age on the back of his neck; the prospect of more years of new towns and hard trail sleeping, always moving on, no longer appealed. Laying aside his rifle and picking up a pen had a kind of inevitability about it, though he suspected that the ready market he had found for his essays and observations was testimony as much to provincial newspaper editors’ difficulty in filling their pages as to his literary talents. 

For Billy, always more cautious, more restless, change came harder. The folk of Rose Creek were welcoming, no doubt of it, yet Billy would always stand out – there was no one else like him in this town, and that, coupled with his natural reserve, meant he fitted less easily into the life around him. In the beginning there had been as much labour on the reconstruction of the town as any able-bodied man could do, but as the townsfolks’ lives settled back to farming, crafting and shopkeeping it had become plain there was no niche here for Billy’s particular skills.

It would work, in time, Goodnight was sure of it, and they were fortunate that time was something they had. Meanwhile, though, Billy chafed at the limited horizons of their situation. What he said was that he wanted to escape the confines of small-town society, to see the wider world again, sleep under the stars, but at heart they both knew that what he needed was to reinhabit his old life, to be Billy Rocks, knife-fighter again, reclaiming the skills that gave him status and pride. Goodnight had seen the enthusiasm with which he packed his saddlebags, the eagerness in his face as he sharpened and polished his knives: a month’s escort duty with the wagons to Odessa was the least of it. 

As he reached the bend in the road Goodnight looked down on their house in its hollow sheltered by the cottonwoods and was filled with a sense of pride. Building the house had been the best form of physical therapy, working his muscles until they were more powerful than before, strengthening his bones, making him forget his knitted injuries in the happy labour of sawing and planing, hammering and mortising. Now the boards and shingles which had been shiny new were already beginning to weather, the house growing into the space around it: a paddock for the horses on the open side, a path worn down to the trees and the creek on the other, woodpile neatly stacked by the wall. 

Being here alone for the first time would be odd. Billy and he had laboured side by side on the making of it, from the first evening pacing out the foundations to the last nail hammered home, creating a place for the two of them; every plank and doorway, every floorboard and shingle, spoke Billy to him. And every object in the house spoke him too: the curl of his fingers around the handle of a mug, his legs stretched out in the chair, his shoulders under his heavy winter coat on the peg, his lithe figure leaning on the rail of the porch. Whether Goodnight moved through the house, sitting at the table, cooking at the stove, or followed the path down to the creek to fetch water, Billy’s presence rang clear beside him at every step. 

More than anything else, when he lay down alone on the rustling straw mattress, their bed spoke Billy-and-Goodnight together: the roughly-made bedstead salvaged for them by Vasquez when they were both too weak to fend for themselves, conjured up on that first day, mended and restrung, in unspoken gratitude for their part in Faraday’s miraculous survival; the quilt that covered it, patched for a double bed, gifted by Emma Cullen, as a wordless acknowledgement of what they were to each other; the brown bearskin which Red had left rolled up by their door as a silent gift. They had seen out that first winter twined together for warmth under the fur, rekindling the spark burnt low by injury and weakness; they had tended each other ill in this bed, made love in it, staggered to it drunk and seizing with laughter, spent the quiet of sunny mornings lazing and talking in it.

Goodnight’s thoughts naturally slipped away to Billy, out on the trail, underneath a blanket, or maybe just stretched full length on bare rock with his hat over his face, and fear trickled unbidden into his mind: what if Billy were injured? What if he took fever, were shot? Tension rose like a bubble in his chest, constricting his breathing, and now he had no comforting warmth to curl into, no steadying voice to banish the uneasy thoughts. He sat up again, relit the lamp and tried to slow his breathing. This was foolish. He reached automatically for his flask, then remembered Billy tucking it into his coat as he left, and that at least made him smile. He got up again to find a bottle and glass and took them out to the back porch where he sat for some time, listening to the sounds of the night: the distant murmur of the creek, the sudden sharp bark of a fox, the swoop and flutter of a bat. He fell asleep later, picturing Billy with his hat over his eyes breathing slow and even by the fire, but his sleep was restless and he woke early, one arm thrown out to the cold space beside him. 

In morning light his anxiety seemed unreasonable, his mind throwing up possibilities to torment him needlessly: in reality they were a bare day’s journey away, wagons and escort slowly winding their way along the road to Edison where Sam would join them; in the event that they were attacked Billy and Vasquez would, he was certain, be delighted, competing to see who enjoyed the chance to spread some mayhem the most. Nevertheless it left him restless at his work, and by afternoon the thought of Vasquez was a prompt to saddle his horse and ride out to the Cullen farm.

He called briefly at the farmhouse to pay his respects to Emma, coming away with an invitation to supper on Saturday, then rode out across the fields where the ripening grain was shining in the sun. The cabin was at the far edge of the property among a stand of trees, distant enough to gain Faraday and Vasquez much-needed privacy. It was smaller than his and Billy’s place, as suited to two men who spent half their lives outdoors, but as sound and well-designed as any project with Vasquez’ capable hands behind it, a low one-storey house with a stone chimney and a porch out front to catch the sun, stables to one side behind, its shallow steps and gently graded paths a subtle accommodation to the effects of Faraday’s injuries. 

Goodnight shouted a greeting as he rode up but got no answer, and no dogs chasing out to investigate him either, so he left his mare to graze and headed round the back, where he found Faraday out with a young bay horse, taking him through the first steps of training to bridle and rein. Rather than interrupt the painstaking repetitions Goodnight stopped to watch from a distance, intrigued to see him absorbed and intent in the work, handling the animal with a calm authority unlike his habitual restless impatience. 

Eventually one of the dogs barked and Faraday turned to see him. 'Goodnight! How long you been there? Should have said.’

‘Interesting sight to watch,’ said Goodnight easily, loping over to lean on the railing, ‘and not like time’s something I’m short of. Fine creature.’

‘He is, ain’t he?’ said Faraday, running a hand over the horse’s flank. ‘And he’s a firecracker – high-strung, vicious, the trader said, but no horse is vicious naturally, just badly broke.’

‘Your Jack being the exception?’

‘Oh, Jack’s vicious to order,’ said Faraday proudly, ‘that’s real training. And this one’ll make someone a damn fine horse.’

‘Don’t let me interrupt you,’ said Goodnight, but Faraday said with an easy grin, 'Can hear the whisky calling, can’t you?’ and began to untack the bay; his missing fingers made him clumsy with the bridle, but Goodnight knew better than to offer help, and they didn’t hinder the gentle strokes to the horse’s neck and flank that soothed and calmed him. They left him in the corral and walked slowly back to the house, Goodnight matching his pace to Faraday’s. 

‘This fancy enough for you?’ asked Faraday, rummaging in the messy kitchen and holding up a bottle, then leading the way through the house to the sunny stoop at the front. Once they were settled on the porch, Goodnight careful to take the chair on his hearing side, dog stretched at their feet, Faraday asked, ‘To what do I owe the pleasure? Would have been over Thursday anyway, so must be something to bring you out here.’

‘Looking for company, truth be told,’ said Goodnight. ‘Odd having Billy away.’

Faraday gazed out over the fields where the roof of the farmhouse was just visible. ‘Know what you mean. Plenty to do here, always is, but I’m used to having that damn Mexican around trying to tell me how to do it. And I have to cook for myself, and my cooking is shit.’

Goodnight chuckled. ‘Can always come and eat with me when you run out of clean dishes.’

‘Might even take you up on that. Or, better, we can wager dinners when we play.’

‘Can’t see how that would work in my favour,’ observed Goodnight. ‘Still, they’ll be back before too long. Should be an easy trip.’ 

‘Sure,’ said Faraday, ‘three weeks there, day or two of drinking, one week back. Won’t be enough for Vas, he was complaining it would be tame.’

‘Billy was hoping for the chance to use his knives. I can’t believe I’m turning into such a grandpa, fretting over it.’ He swirled his glass. ‘But after all that’s happened …’ 

Faraday exhaled, hand scratching at the head of the dog beside him. ‘Wish I were there with them. New town, new games, new marks, was always my way, then when it got too hot, head for the next.’

‘Could have gone,’ said Goodnight, but Faraday snorted. ‘I’d be no use out there now.’ 

He looked at Goodnight thoughtfully. ‘You could have gone, though. Why not?’ 

‘Considered it,’ said Goodnight, ‘but I’m not aiming to go courting trouble again.’ 

Faraday snickered. ‘Yeah: courting trouble’s what Vas was born to do. He ever tell you his story about the horse thieves and the rattlesnake?’

‘No,’ said Goodnight, and when he’d finished recounting it, ‘Reminds me of the time Billy and I got jumped on the trail up Gunnison way, I think it was …’ and they traded tales back and forth as the sun went down. 

Mindful of Vasquez’ request Goodnight asked before he left, ‘You faring all right, cooking apart? Chores need doing?’ 

‘No,’ said Faraday shortly, ‘Can see to it myself.’ But Goodnight had seen the empty bucket in the kitchen, and when he stood up to leave he excused himself to step outside, took it to the well to refill and set it in its corner. 

‘Be over Thursday?’ he asked as he mounted up. ‘Come early if you want to eat.’

‘Won’t say no to that,’ said Faraday. 

Goodnight left him poking dubiously at something on the stove and rode home thoughtfully. He understood Faraday’s pride, his touchy reluctance to accept help, and more than that, he respected it: his own experience of injury, trivial though it now seemed in comparison, had shown him enough of gratitude to know how threadbare it could become. Everyone in Rose Creek owed Faraday a debt for his unflinching courage, but it was hard even for him to escape a sense of guilt when he saw the price he had paid, and most could not conceal the awkwardness which Faraday inevitably felt as condescension and pity.

The talk of Billy had steadied him, convincing him that his decision was right – Billy needed to be himself, to do what he did best, not to be stuck at his side, purposeless and frustrated, in a tiny town. Certainly it was bound to be strange, being apart: during their travelling life separation had been unnecessary, would have been unwise, but now, with a settled home, spending time apart was normal. Goodnight would stay; Billy could range and return. And it was just a month. Hardly any time.

 

Saturday’s dinner at the farmhouse was a sociable affair: when Goodnight arrived he found Emma Cullen, Abner and his wife Sarah and the farmhands all packed in around the table, Faraday already there. As they passed plates and dishes the talk was all town gossip: farming prospects, the new dry goods business, Trent’s plan to reopen the mine. It was a warm bath of trivial chatter, and it took him a while to notice how subdued Faraday seemed, a sharp contrast to the aggressive good humour he normally showed to his friends. Goodnight was as easy and sociable as ever, a performance that came naturally to him, but from the corner of his eye he caught the awkward scrape and rattle of Faraday’s cutlery, the way his head turned to chase the conversation, and he felt again a stab of sympathy. If he found himself adrift without Billy’s silent presence to anchor him, without their shared glances of amusement or warning, how must Faraday feel without Vasquez’ easy affabililty to buffer him? He could understand his partner’s desire to see beyond Rose Creek, just like Billy, but it was painful to see Faraday struggling with a half-heard conversation about people he never saw, his condition laid bare by the loss of Vasquez’ blanket of affectionate attention.

As they left Goodnight made sure to come up beside him at the top of the steps, saying ‘Come by Monday, if you’re willing; thought I’d do an afternoon’s fishing and could use the company,’ and taking the opportunity to slide an unobtrusive hand under his elbow to steady him.

‘Might just do that,’ said Faraday with the flash of a smile. ‘Thanks, Goody.’

 

That night he woke suddenly, heart pounding, throat raw, the image of Billy stark before his eyes. Not Billy as he’d seen him last, riding out of town with the wagons, nor asleep by the campfire, but lying cold and sightless, chest bloodied, abandoned in the desert. Goodnight shivered, pulling the quilt around himself, wrapping himself in Billy’s scent, but he couldn’t stop trembling: the clarity of his vision was like a punch to the chest. It could have happened. How would he know? Billy could be dead now, shot in an ambush, fevered, crushed under a sliding wagon, buried somewhere out there that he would never find. He might wait three weeks to see Vasquez and Teddy ride back without him, faces sombre; he might never see him again. 

He reached out an arm, patting about blindly in the dark until his hand lighted on the case Billy had left. When he struck the match and lit the cigarette, seeing it flare and catch, he thought of Billy’s deft fingers rolling it, striking the match for it, of his lips drawing on it, as he’d done a hundred times on other nights in other rooms. He drew in the smoke and heard his quiet voice, felt his hand on his back, summoned him back into being to send the fear dropping down into the still dark pool of his mind, sitting in the night with the red glow for company until his thoughts wound grainy and slow. Eventually he crushed out the stub, rolled himself into the quilt and slid into the depths himself. 

He carried a little of the ease with him into the morning, but as he sat at his writing anxiety wound like a cat around his feet, leaving him staring at the pages for minutes at a time, ink dried on his pen; when he lifted his head from his papers to a ringing silence, or when he saw his horse grazing alone in the paddock, it set a tiny cold bead rattling at the back of his skull, gifting him an insidious vision of what might so nearly have been, _of what might still be_ , whispered his dream. Try as he might, the image from the night kept rising before him, and he was more than glad when Faraday appeared riding down the path to the house, fishing rod over one shoulder.

‘Shouldn’t you be working?’ asked Faraday, as they strolled down to the creek together. 

‘Have been,’ said Goodnight, ‘six pages of well-expressed criticism of the Chinese exclusion proposals, ready for the mail to Prescott.’ 

‘And they pay you for airing your opinions?’ 

‘Seems there’s an appetite for it,’ said Goodnight. ‘Likewise, shouldn’t you be?’ 

‘Horse needs to rest as well as to work,’ said Faraday.

‘Ah yes,’ said Goodnight as they passed under the trees, ‘“the bow that is never unstrung will break”.’

‘You talk a whole lot of shit,’ cackled Faraday, but Goodnight smiled serenely. ‘And you’re in for a long afternoon of it.’

It was pleasantly cool in the shade of the trees, the creek pooling smooth and brown, insects dancing above the dimpled surface. ‘This is a good spot,’ said Goodnight, and they laid out their tackle on the creekside. Out here in the open his own unease lessened and Faraday’s injuries too seemed less obvious: he stretched his leg as he sat, and handled rod and line with some of his old dexterity. 

‘Always did enjoy fishing. Envy you that, having the creek right by.’ 

‘Abner did us a favour selling this plot,’ agreed Goodnight.

It was as relaxing as he’d hoped, out in the sun and the breeze, afternoon empty of anything but patient expectation, and his spirits rose. 

‘Strange enough to see all of us settling down,’ remarked Faraday after a while, ‘’cept Red of course, not his way.’

‘He’s young,’ said Goodnight. ‘But yes, even Horne the mountain man, married with a litter of ready-made grandchildren. Surprises me still sometimes.’ 

The sun filtered through the leaves as birds chattered above them and Faraday suddenly grunted, hauling in his line and pulling in a wriggling silver fish. ‘See that!’ he cried triumphantly, and Goodnight had to smile at the boyish enthusiasm in his face. 

Once he was settled again, line recast, Faraday went on, ‘Vas is strange that way too - hiding out, dangerous fugitive, and now it seems all he wanted to do was find a farm and put in a day’s work.’

‘We don’t always know ourselves,’ said Goodnight, ‘never thought I’d settle in the one place.’ 

Faraday scoffed. ‘You’re the only one surprised by that, Goody – nothing you want more than a house and your own chair on the porch. But Billy now …’ 

‘Yes,’ said Goodnight. ‘Billy.’ He was silent for a while, contemplating his line where the water swirled round it, then continued, ‘It’s difficult. We can’t go back to what we used to, fighting and shooting, we both know that – we’re slower now, after what happened, even him, and there’d come a day when he wasn’t quite quick enough. No, he needs another way, but whether he can find it here… Billy’s carved his own path, more than any of us, and he’s not one to let people tell him what to do.’

‘Everyone knows he’s the boss of you,’ says Faraday slyly. 

‘Pot, kettle,’ said Goodnight. He looked sideways at Faraday, casting his line again. ‘What about you? It works for Vas, we can all see that, but is Rose Creek working for you too?’ 

Faraday laughed humourlessly. ‘It’s fine. But it ain’t like I get a choice.’ 

‘Thought you liked horses,’ said Goodnight. 

‘I do. But Rose Creek has to do for me now. Look at me, Goody. I can’t walk easy. Can’t ride for a whole day. Can’t hear right. Can’t draw a gun or palm a card. What would I do? Breaking horses – it’s good, works well – but it’s my only trick left to play.’ He paused and took a breath as though to continue, then let it out again. 

‘What?’ asked Goodnight.

‘Nothing,’ said Faraday. ‘C’mon, you’re not even trying to trouble the fish. We’re not here to do nature study for the newspaper.’ 

 

By the time they were getting hungry they had a good haul of catfish, and as Faraday had caught most of them Goodnight considered it fair exchange that he gut and cook them; Faraday sat at the table, glass in hand, and watched him. 

‘You eat like this all the time, it’s no wonder you’re getting soft round the middle.’

Goodnight turned from the stove to glare at him in outrage. ‘Front door’s behind you, Joshua, and Jack’s outside.’ 

His reaction made Faraday grin with delight. ‘No need to fight it, Goody, I’m sure Billy appreciates it.’ 

‘If you want to eat,’ said Goodnight, waving a fork with a menacing air, ‘you’ll withdraw that comment right now.'

‘OK, OK,’ said Faraday, holding up his hands, ‘you’re all whipcord and sinew.’

‘Damn straight I am,’ said Goodnight, creasing into laughter. He turned the fish in the skillet. ‘If you’re going to insult people you really need to learn to cook.’

‘Oh, I can shift for myself,’ said Faraday defensively. ‘Good to know I can.’ 

‘Why?’ asked Goodnight, flipping the fish onto two plates. ‘Not like you’d really need to.’ 

‘Well…’ Faraday shifted awkwardly. ‘Me and Vas – it’s not like you and Billy, is it?’

‘How d’you mean?’ 

‘Well, we just made acquaintance, then all this happened, and I was hardly awake for the first few months, and now …’

‘Self-doubt? From Joshua Faraday? Am I hearing right?’

‘Hey, you’re talking to the world’s greatest lover, you know.’

Goodnight choked on his fish. ‘I really did not need to hear that.’

‘But you and Billy – how long were you travelling together?’

‘Nine years,’ said Goodnight, turning his glass in hand and seeing Billy sitting across the table from him, lifting an eyebrow. 

‘Like you said, must be odd without him.’

‘Like missing my right arm,’ said Goodnight absently. ‘But it’s only a month.’ He straightened up, abruptly conscious of his lapse into sentiment, and said, ‘C’mon, drink up. No reason to get maudlin here.’ 

Faraday needed no further invitation to do just that, and by the end of the evening both he and Goodnight were red-faced and snorting as they tried to outdo each other with outrageous tales. Goodnight had to heave him up, swaying and cursing, onto Jack for his ride home, awkwardness forgotten, and when he wove his own way to bed it was with the image of Billy as drunk as he was, wearing the boyish grin that only he saw, collapsing onto the bed beside him. _I can do this_ , he thought as he crashed down into sleep. _I have to be able to do this_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to wanderingsmith, whose comments improved this chapter no end. 
> 
> There is one instance of able-ist comments in this chapter, though it's self-directed rather than abusive.

A month. Time enough to train a horse, time enough to write some well-reasoned essays on contemporary politics and poetry, time enough to roll a wagon train along the trail to Odessa, defending it from road agents and opportunistic thieves. The citizens of Rose Creek went about their business – late spring planting, carting lumber and hammering together the new dry goods store, passing the time of day at the freight office, children learning their grammar in the schoolhouse before pouring out to play in the dusty street. But Goodnight played increasingly little part in the life of the town, and Faraday less.

There was no reason the pattern of Goodnight’s days should change, but the still and empty house bred uneasy imaginings, and the question haunted him: Billy could be injured, ill, dying – how would he know? He was too distracted to work, struggling to find focus and calm, and he found himself seeking the comfort of shared experience, riding out to the farm more often than before, Faraday always greeting him without surprise, determined to treat his unusual sociability as no more than happenstance and his regular hauling of water and chopping of wood as random favours to be passed unremarked. Goodnight spent afternoons watching him put the bay horse through its training, evenings playing cards and sometimes cooking in the disorderly kitchen in exchange for drink and company. 

He was the only regular visitor: though part of the farm, the cabin was deliberately isolated, and no matter when he arrived Goodnight never found anyone else there; Faraday referred occasionally to visiting the farmhouse for equipment or to discuss practical matters, but seemed to discourage Emma and the hands from passing by.

Only once did a farmhand appear, one afternoon when Goodnight was watching Faraday ride the bay at different paces, teaching him to respond to hand and foot. The young man came riding down to the corral leading a horse, a grey mare shying in fear, and as he jumped down from his horse Goodnight could see the family resemblance – a younger, more heavy-set version of Teddy, with the same rosy complexion and slightly worried brow. He greeted Goodnight with eager enthusiasm, ‘Mr Robicheaux!’

‘Afternoon, son,’ said Goodnight affably, ‘it’s Henry, right?’ He felt self-conscious, even though there was every reason for him to be there leaning on the railing: Henry was hardly likely to ask him why he wasn’t at home. 

‘Yessir,’ said Henry, ‘come to see the horse?’ He joined Goodnight at the railing. ‘Fine animal, don’t you say? Mr Faraday’s done the impossible.’ They watched him take the horse smoothly from trot to walk, then Henry asked suddenly, ‘You didn’t think to go to Odessa with my brother and Mr Rocks? I’d have gone quick as anything if I had the chance.’ 

‘Too dull for you here?’ asked Goodnight, avoiding the direct answer. 

‘Hell, yes – Teddy gets to go standing up to outlaws and riding out to the city with Mr Chisolm and Mr Rocks and I stay stuck on the farm.’ 

‘I strongly doubt that they’ll see much fighting, son,’ said Goodnight, even as his stomach griped cold, ‘escorting a wagon train’s not a glamorous job.’ 

‘More adventure than digging holes for fenceposts or hoeing beans,’ said Henry stubbornly. ‘I’m old enough to be handy, can shoot and fight.’ 

Goodnight seemed to himself to have split in two, half of him carrying on an easy conversation, accepting that Billy was riding alongside the wagons or scouting ahead, well and unharmed, enjoying the freedom, the other half racked with dread, seeing vision after vision of disaster: the wagon sliding out of control down the slope, the bad water, the ambush. _Stay here_ , it was on the tip of Goodnight’s tongue to say, _Don’t risk yourself_ , but he left it unsaid, because it wouldn’t be Henry he’d be speaking to.

 

Henry nodded to the bay horse again. ‘Wouldn’t believe it from how he was,’ and then, as Faraday drew him to a prancing halt beside them, ‘never thought I’d see him handle so easy’. 

Faraday patted the horse’s neck, clearly pleased at the compliment. ‘He’s still spirited, needs a firm hand, but he knows what he’s doing now.’ 

‘You worked wonders, must have a secret way with them.’

Faraday smiled. ‘Me and horses, we understand each other. This one’ll soon be ready for sale again, week or so.’ 

‘Brought over a new one for you,’ said Henry, gesturing back to where the grey mare was standing, sweated and lightly shivering. 

Faraday dismounted awkwardly, slithering to the ground with a thump, and Goodnight saw his shoulders set self-consciously as he limped over to the gate, where before he would simply have vaulted the rail. He turned his back deliberately and asked Henry, ‘Busy right now?’ 

‘Always,’ said Henry ruefully, ‘but there’s more to do now with Sr Vasquez gone too. He works like two men, we miss him.’ 

‘Think we all do, at that,’ said Goodnight. 

At Faraday’s approach the mare shied, showing the whites of her eyes, and he turned to ask, ‘What’s her story?’ 

‘Good horse, been badly used.’ 

‘Poor creature,’ said Goodnight, ‘it takes a mean-spirited man to make a beast so scared.’ Faraday had his hand on the rein but made no move to touch her, talking in a soothing undertone. 

‘Ms Cullen asks if you think you can settle her?’ 

‘Yes,’ said Faraday, ‘though it may take some patience.’ 

‘Might be…’ said Henry, scuffing at the ground a little, ‘might be, I could come by some days, learn a little?’ 

‘Horsebreaking?’ said Faraday in surprise. 

‘Thought you were hankering after being a hired gun?’ asked Goodnight. 

‘Horsebreaking’s a trade can take you places too,’ says Henry, and Goodnight’s heart sank at the sudden twist to Faraday’s mouth. 

‘Ain’t such an easy thing to teach,’ he said brusquely, leading the mare away towards the stable. ‘You’d be better sticking to digging for those fenceposts.’ 

Goodnight took pity on Henry’s crestfallen look, and said, ‘Try him again later, son – now’s not such good timing.’ 

‘Sure, Mr Robicheaux,’ said Henry, but his face was doubtful he mounted up to leave. 

 

Goodnight waited until Faraday came back from the stable, and as they walked back up to the house, he said gently, ‘You could go easier on him: he’s young. He admires you.’ 

Faraday’s face turned ugly. ‘Admires me? No one admires me. They pity me. They laugh. Hell, way I am now, I’d laugh at me.’ 

Goodnight was stricken at seeing such unguessed depths of rage. ‘Joshua, no one laughs at you. No one thinks you anything but a hero.’ 

‘Hero.’ Faraday swung round to face him, stopping him on the path. ‘I’m sick of that word, Goody. I learned a few things about heroes. Everyone says, _so brave_ , but I thought it was daring deeds, death or glory, live or die. Would I have gone out there if I’d known this was what I was buying? Rest of my life as half a man?’ He blew out what might have been a laugh. ‘Good thing we never have to find out, ain’t it?’ 

None of them, Goodnight now saw, had realised the extent of the protection Vasquez gave to Faraday: an arm to steady his balance, a tap on the wrist or a word in his ear to cover his deafness, a quick steady hand to right a tipping glass. They’d looked and not seen, partly through expectation and partly from that same sense of prickling guilt – some had paid a higher price than others, and Faraday had paid the highest of all of them. Goodnight could understand how it had happened: busy finding the paths of their own lives – Sam settling as marshal, he and Billy with the house, Horne married and Red off wandering more than not – they had left Vasquez to take Faraday and make a refuge for him, allowed him to cut himself off, becoming gradually less like himself; with his closest friends he retained enough of the same character to avoid notice, but to an outsider he would be unrecognisable as the brash gambler who rode into Rose Creek on a horse owned by Sam

 

Goodnight’s own need for Billy was far less obvious day to day – he could do his own chores, cook, act the part of the sociable gentleman – and no doubt anyone in the town would have agreed that it was he who protected Billy, who spoke up for them both, mediated between him and the white world. Only Sam in the time they had spent together had ever begun to fathom the depths of the need that Billy met in other ways, the guilt that ate at him, the demons that pursued him, the self-loathing that threatened to consume him. Without Billy … even to think it gripped him in a paralysing chill. His conscious mind raged at the weakness in him that begged to chain Billy to his side, unsatisfied and fretful, at the same time that his unconscious showed him with stark brutality and unanswerable certainty what he most feared: that he would never see him alive again.

His dreams were always chaotic and formless, but now one image came to dominate his visions: he saw Billy dead, over and over. Sometimes he lay in a dusty corral, bullet wound in his chest, sometimes he died in the belltower here, and sometimes, for no reason Goodnight could explain, he was drowned, face under rippling green water. Sometimes he wore a different face, familiar from a long time ago, or one he’d never seen. Mostly, though, he was Billy now, Billy as he rode away, dead in the desert, face still and eyes closed, and no way for Goodnight to reach him. 

The one cure he needed he couldn’t have, but he tried the others: he drank himself into slurring oblivion, smoked the last of Billy’s cigarettes, but nothing seemed to prevent the images rising up to torture him. In despair he turned to an old trick from the worst days when he slept alone: he took a metal dish from the kitchen and put it upside down on the chair next to the bed, and when he took off his vest he unclipped his watch and placed it on the dish. The metal magnified the watch’s tick in the silence of the night, so when he came thrashing out of a dream with nothing to anchor him, reeling in a thousand spinning fragments of sight and sound, he had at least the regular beat to force order back into his thoughts and bring him back to himself, shuddering in the empty bedroom.

Anxiety had sunk its talons in him and its grip became unrelenting. His regular affairs stood neglected, he knew; he should collect his mail from the freight office, speak to Trent at the bank, return a book to the schoolmaster, but he shrank from the conversation that would require. He slept little and fitfully, up in the night pacing, fearful of what he’d see; he spent long hours out under the stars, aching for Billy, feeling his absence in every step: in the day he was forgetful, running down to a stop, sitting distracted at his desk, letting water boil over and the stove go out. Its effects became impossible to hide and he turned more and more inward, hating himself – he was weak, incapable, absurd – and that his weakness should be revealed after so short a time. 

 

Shocked awake in the dark, mind spinning in confusion, Goodnight couldn’t separate the ringing of the metal dish on the floor and the pain blossoming over his eye. He was on the floor and gasping for air, lungs squeezed tight, and as the bedroom righted itself around him he realised that he must have got up and run into the half-open door. He felt blood trickle down his face and raised a sleeve to the cut: it would bruise. How many years since he’d come to rely on two strong arms to wrap him round and calm him, a patient steady voice to soothe him, a warm body to quiet his thudding heart? _What will I do without him?_ He sat and shivered, and despair settled like a weight on his limbs; eventually he reached to pull the quilt off the bed and wrap it round himself. He woke again later, how much later he couldn’t tell, head thumping dully and mouth dry, and dragged himself back to bed.

It was late morning before he woke again, and this time he got up and dressed, pain drilling above his eye. He was sick with it all, sick with fear, sick with fatigue, sick with dread. The house, their haven, had become a weight on him, Billy not there, never coming back, and all at once it was too much to bear; he had to leave, to be free of it, and he picked up his coat, closing the door on everything just as it was, bedroom still overturned, dishes on the table, papers scattered, simply walked out and rode away.

 

The dogs barked at his approach to Faraday’s cabin, but there was no sign of other activity, and when Goodnight knocked he heard a shout of ‘In here!’ The tone was harsh and unwelcoming, and he found Faraday sitting in the cluttered kitchen, one leg propped up on a chair in front of him. He was half-dressed, in shirt and drawers, and looked pale and sweaty. 

He stared glassy-eyed at Goodnight. ‘You look as shit as I feel. What happened to your face?’ 

Goodnight touched his eye. ‘Walked into a door,’ he said shortly. ‘What happened to you?’ 

Faraday gestured at his leg, patched and streaked with bright red marks. ‘Actually tried to cook, which was a grade-A stupid fucking idea. Tipped the pan over myself.’

‘Looks painful,’ said Goodnight, ‘did you soak it?’ 

‘What with?’ snarled Faraday. ‘Not like I can haul water easy at the best of times, and there ain’t none now. Don’t matter anyhow: just be one more addition to my impressive set of scars.’ 

His joke was bleak and Goodnight could see why: under the burn his whole leg was ridged and knotted with scar tissue and the imprint of stitching. ‘Get you some now,’ said Goodnight, and went to fetch the bucket. When he came back with it slopping full he rummaged around for something clean to soak and drape over the scald; Faraday let him attend to it, cradling his bottle and squinting at his face. 

‘Must have hit that door pretty damn hard. Want a drink?’ Goodnight took the bottle, certain it was a bad idea, and equally certain that right now he wanted it with every fibre of his being.

He sat down, shoulders hunching at the nagging pain in his head, and suddenly Faraday coughed out a humourless laugh. ‘Ain’t we a pair, though? Telling them _Go, I don’t need you_ , when we can’t do one damn thing without them, and terrified they won’t come back.’ 

‘Why do you think Vasquez won’t come back?’ asked Goodnight, surprise piercing his self-absorption. 

‘Why would he? Stuck here in a tiny town, breaking his back working so he can help me shuffle round like an old man – what kind of a life is that? He used to talk about seeing the world, going up north, exploring. What’s a pissing little trip to Odessa?’ 

‘Joshua,’ said Goodnight sternly, ‘Vasquez is stubborn and he knows his own mind. If he stays it’s because he wants to.’ 

Faraday looked at him straight on. ‘He feels sorry for me. Everyone does, you too, but Vas knows it all, how bad it is, and he has to stay.’ 

Hearing such an echo of his own despair, Goodnight was filled with an aching sympathy. ‘It’s not a question of pity. Vasquez cares for you,’ he said, surprised into directness by the unvarnished confession of such hurt. ‘Christ knows how it happened, and you don’t always make it easy for him, but don’t think he stays because he has to.’

‘Like you’d know,’ challenged Faraday uneasily. 

‘Think he kept his mouth shut for two months while you were so ill?’ asks Goodnight. ‘We were there. And look at this place. He built it to suit you, inside and out. How can you not trust that?’

Goodnight refilled his glass and the bottle chattered on its rim. ‘You’re a fine one to lecture me. How d’you really come by that black eye?’ asked Faraday bluntly. 

‘Told you,’ said Goodnight, ‘I walked into the door.’ Faraday raised his eyebrows sceptically and Goodnight turned his head away. ‘In the night. I was dreaming.’ 

‘Bad?’ asked Faraday more gently. ‘I said you look like shit. Ain’t been sleeping so good?’ 

The mockery was gone from his tone and Goodnight felt his defences crumble. ‘Every time I close my eyes I see him,’ he said simply. ‘What if he’s dead, Joshua?’ 

‘What?’ said Faraday. ‘What are you talking about?’ 

‘What if there was a holdup? What if he got shot? He could have died on the way there, last week, and I wouldn’t know.’ 

Faraday leaned forward. ‘Goody …’ 

Goodnight’s eyes were unfocused, visions back before him. ‘Maybe they’ll come back with a coffin. Or maybe they’ve buried him out there, and I’ll never see- ’ He could hear his voice rising, and a hand grabbed his wrist. 

‘Goody, stop it. Billy’s not dead. Why would you even think it?’ 

Goodnight bowed his head. ‘I see him dead. Over and over.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I can’t lose him.’ 

Faraday’s other hand, missing three fingers, took his opposite wrist and forced both hands away from his face. ‘Goody, listen to me. Billy’s on his way to Odessa with Vas and Sam, and they’re scaring the living crap out of every man they meet. I swear to you, he ain’t dead.’ 

Goodnight stared into his eyes sightlessly. ‘I see him. Every time.’ 

Faraday’s hand went to his shoulder, stroking up and down the way he calmed the skittish horse. ‘Just breathe, Goody. You’re not thinking right. Not sleeping’ll do that to you.’ His voice was steady and low, matching the regular sweeping of his hand. ‘How long you been this way?’ 

Goodnight closed his eyes again. ‘Been getting worse.’ Faraday kept one hand warm on his wrist, the other stroking back and forth, and they stayed hunched across the table until his breathing calmed. 

 

Eventually Faraday sat up and said, ‘Help me wet these cloths again.’ Goodnight stood up shakily and took them to wring out in the bucket. He turned to find Faraday moving awkwardly around the table, leaning on the back of the chair; he paused and jerked his head towards the bedroom. ‘Going to need …’ and Goodnight came to prop a shoulder under his arm as he limped painfully across the room.

The bedroom was more homely than he expected and tidier, the bed covered with bright blankets, a shelf carrying a mixture of books and little wooden figures, but the most striking thing in the room was the headboard of the bed, the whole surface of the smooth dark wood intricately carved with animals, birds, trees. It drew the eye and the hand, calling Goodnight to sit and run his fingers over it, finding out each shape, tracing the patterns, but he recognised the intimacy of what he was being allowed to see. 

Faraday slumped down on the mattress and sighed. ‘Right. Take your boots off and get under the blanket. I damp this fucking leg down again I might doze some, and I’ll be here to keep you from wandering about hurting yourself.’ He occupied himself with draping the wet cloths over his burns, face turned away, and Goodnight suddenly felt the tension drain out of him, leaving nothing but a bone-deep weariness. It should have felt odd, intrusive, but he was so tired that lying down in Faraday and Vasquez’ bed seemed like the most attractive idea he’d ever heard. He cleared his throat. ‘Could do with some rest, at that,’ and he sat on the end of the bed to pull his boots off, leaving his vest on top of them: by the time he crawled up the bed and lay down he was dizzy with fatigue, head pounding. 

It was welcoming, the mattress comfortable, the unfamiliar scent and texture of the blankets distracting enough to keep his thoughts drifting and unfocused. He heard Faraday’s boots thud onto the floor, and as he levered himself slowly down next to him, hissing through his teeth, the tight knot in Goodnight’s chest eased a little. He closed his eyes, listening to the creaks of the bedstead and Faraday’s breathing gradually slowing beside him, and as warmth gradually spread from his body his limbs began to relax and the throb in his head to lessen.

 

When he woke an indefinite time later, momentarily confused by the low dark ceiling and rough wool over him, he was clearer-headed, panic replaced by a strange empty calm. He turned his head to see Faraday dozing beside him, leg trailing awkwardly over the edge of the mattress, and as Goodnight moved he stirred awake. ‘Better?’

‘Yes.’ Goodnight sat up slowly. ‘You sleep any?’ 

Faraday grimaced. ‘Some. Hurts like fuck.’ He pulled the cloths aside to reveal the burns more livid than before, and Goodnight winced in sympathy. ‘And I’m hungry. Can you make us something to eat? Vas yells at me when I drink and don’t eat.’ 

‘Sure,’ said Goodnight, easing out from under the blanket. He pulled on his boots and stood up gingerly, finding that the pain over his eye had settled to a mild ache. 

A quick survey of the kitchen showed little in the way of fresh food, and Goodnight went back to the bedroom, saying, ‘Not much to eat in there – I’ll go up to the farmhouse, see what they can give us. Won’t be long.’ 

As he bent to retrieve his vest a hand closed on his wrist and he looked up into Faraday’s face, agonised with embarrassment. ‘Goody, don’t tell them,’ he pleaded, ‘don’t let on how bad I’m faring. I don’t need anyone coming out here seeing how it is with me.’ 

Goodnight tried to keep his face neutral. ‘Joshua, I won’t be talking about it. About any of this.’ He held his anxious gaze for a moment, then smiled. ‘And there’s no call for you to be malingering. Wrap your leg up again and see if you can get the stove going. I’ll be back soon as I can.’ 

Faraday seemed to respond surprisingly well to the direct order, and by the time Goodnight left he was perched awkwardly on a chair in the kitchen feeding the stove. ‘See if they’ve got any pie!’ he called after him. 

 

On his return Goodnight found the stove hot and Faraday collapsed in one of the chairs. As he dumped his supplies onto the table Faraday squinted at him. ‘That eye’s pretty spectacular. What did they say?’ 

‘Told them we had a fight,’ said Goodnight with a wink. ‘Said you came off worst.’

Faraday guffawed. ‘Like they’d believe that.’ 

‘Now, dinner,’ said Goodnight, ‘and yes, pie.’

After they ate Goodnight collected the dishes and cleaned up, Faraday sitting with his leg propped on a chair, working at a broken harness. He still felt hollowed-out, not himself, and the thought of the ride back to his empty house made his stomach churn; he lingered, drawing out the chores, until Faraday said carelessly, ‘Seen to your horse? I’d do it, but … Plenty of space in the stable.’ 

Relief settled over him, and rather than examine it too closely, he said, ‘Right,’ and went out. 

After he came back, Faraday said without looking up, ‘Take one of the books if you want,’ so he did, settling in a chair by the hearth with _Travels to the Source of the Missouri River_ , and the evening ticked away in a companionable silence. 

When Faraday finally stirred himself, Goodnight said, ‘Get that bandaged up for you again,’ and afterwards, as Faraday leaned on his shoulder again to get to bed, he began hesitantly, ‘Look …’ 

‘Long as you like, Goody.’ Faraday’s face creased into a grin. ‘You snore a whole lot less than Vas, can tell you that.’ 

At that something in him relaxed, and he was able to laugh too. ‘Wake me if your leg is worse,’ he said as he wrapped himself in his blanket once more. 

‘Gets worse, they’ll hear me shouting two towns over,’ groused Faraday, but though he twitched restlessly to begin with, Goodnight eventually heard his breathing deepen and settle. 

 

When he woke the next morning he found he’d rolled up against Faraday in the night, sprawled out and snoring gently. It was strange, but not strange enough to move, and he lay staring at the ceiling, concentrating on the immediate and practical: they’d need fresh meat; would Faraday be able to walk? When Faraday began to move and stretch he turned over to set some distance between them, letting him wake in his own time.

Faraday heaved himself up against the headboard, scratching under his shirt. ‘Feeling better?’ 

‘Yes.’ Goodnight was more rested than for a long time, the pressing sense of dread receded. ‘Want me to fix coffee? How’s the leg?’ 

Faraday tested it, wincing. ‘Not so bad as it was. You help me cover it up again, I can probably get my pants on over it.’ 

And just like that, seamlessly, Goodnight was living a different life. He thought it should have felt stranger than it did, his own life left suspended at the moment he’d walked out, cast off and hung up like a coat while he took down a different one and slipped it on; at first he supposed that he’d taken down Vasquez’ life instead and put it on, living in his house, sleeping in his bed, doing his chores, but gradually he came to see that that was wrong: this was a non-life, he and Faraday both stepping sideways into an in-between existence, a tiny pocket of unreality where they could shelter from the real world. And it was as though his anxiety had been laid aside too, like a physical burden that could simply be set down, left waiting at home while he was somewhere else, and in the bed with the carved headboard he slept deep and peacefully.

They both shied away from addressing their situation, as though agreed that too much attention might puncture the fragile equilibrium they’d achieved: in the day their talk was of workaday matters, the horses, the farm, supplies, chores. Goodnight lent his shoulder for Faraday to lean on without comment, and learned the habit of keeping the floor clear for his feet; sometimes in the morning he woke with a vague memory of a rush of fractured images, and of a low voice speaking calm words, a hand gentling him like the bay horse, though Faraday never mentioned it by day. Just occasionally, though, moments managed to pierce the façade, letting them reach behind hard-built defences and find a way to speak the unspoken.

On a shelf Goodnight found a familiar battered deck of cards, set aside and gathering dust, and he took them down and held them out to Faraday, saying, ‘Here. Used to be you were never without these in your hands.’ Faraday held up his maimed hand in eloquent silence, but Goodnight shook his head. ‘Saw enough of men in war to teach me about that. You got two hands. You learn again. You adapt. Only one thing holding you back.’ And from then on, in the evenings, Faraday spent his time stacking and shuffling, swearing and spilling them over and over again, but Goodnight simply picked up the cards that fluttered to his feet, passed them back and went back to his book.

And another night, as they lay in the dark, Faraday commented low, ‘Never figured you got this bad.’ 

‘Have done for years. Was in a bad way when I met Billy. He picked me up and put me back together. Even then …’ The thought never comes without an accompanying flush of shame. ‘You saw how it was. Everyone did.’

He heard Faraday turn his head on the pillow. ‘No need to rake old quarrels. We lived, both of us.’

‘You’d think it would ease, coming back from near dying, but it doesn’t. It’s different, different shaped, but it doesn’t change. And Billy … Billy’s always pulled me through.’ 

‘Hard thing, to be on the needing end.’ 

‘I’ve had time enough to get used to it,’ said Goodnight ruefully. 

Faraday sighed. ‘I ain’t.’

 

The one topic Goodnight couldn’t speak of was _when_ : they both knew the count, _three weeks there, one day’s drinking, one week back_ , and Faraday skirted it, tentatively, ‘’Course, travel can take longer than you think. Wheels get broke, horses go lame. Day’s drinking can turn into two. Or three, I can vouch for that.’ 

But Goodnight just shook his head. His mind refused to go there: it was the cliff over which he fell, the point at which it all came crashing down. Better to inhabit a simple now, words sliding from his pen, a new horse to gentle, stories on the front porch as the sun goes down, Joshua regaining a hint of his old dexterity, _pick a card, Goody_ , always now, suspended and waiting, time out of time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to wanderingsmith, whose help was invaluable from start to finish with this chapter.

The wagons wound their way out of Rose Creek and Billy rode out with them, sitting proud on his horse, conscious of the figure he made, dark and impassive, tooled knives shining at his belt. His spirits rose at the prospect of seeing beyond the hills: as they topped the rise the plain spread out in front of them, open and unbounded, fresh with new grass and touched with the gold and blue of spring flowers, in the distance the silver flash of a meandering river. Low hills rolled a darker green to the distant horizon, and as the town dwindled slowly behind them he couldn’t deny his enthusiasm at being on the open trail again.

This was a small party, just a few families taking their worldly possessions to what they hoped were better prospects: the wagons were heavy-loaded and slow, packed full with furniture and tools, boxes and kitchenware, mules tagging behind on their ropes; children and old folks rode under cover, the adults walking beside at the oxen’s slow pace. The first two days of the journey would be easy, the territory too well-populated to carry any serious threat, and only after Sam joined them from Edison would the real work begin. But that was no reason not to be alert, and Billy put himself at the head of the column, easy in the saddle, scanning the horizon as they inched their way across the plain. 

His thoughts followed Goody back along the road to the house. Safe. Still haunted, he always would be, but safe. No more bullets, no more fights: Billy’s memories of how weakened the injuries had left him were still vivid, and he reckoned the cost of every struggling step, every slow grinding day fighting back to health and vigour; Goody would not survive that again. ‘Stay,’ he’d said, ‘write, fish, read, play cards with Faraday, talk with Josiah. But stay.’ He’d rolled and stockpiled a case of cigarettes; he’d need to buy more opium in Odessa. He’d held him down and kissed him, loved him over and over as though he could imprint himself on his flesh, be there even when he wasn’t. He’d told him, _just a month, no time at all_ , and Goody had laughed, had shaken his head, saying, ‘Billy, don’t fuss, go,’ and he’d taken the words he wanted to hear and left him behind. 

Should he have stayed? ‘It’s hardly any time,’ Goody had said, making it easy for him. ‘See somewhere new, stretch your legs.’ And there was his hidden inward point of guilt. They both called it the freedom of the open trail, but at heart he knew what he was seeking was the admiration and the respect of the hired gun. He wanted it, wanted it with a fire that shamed him in the face of Goody’s selfless concern. Goody had happily set his rifle on the shelf, and his reputation with it, but Billy wasn’t ready to hang up his knives beside them. He’d worked hard to become himself, worked hard to return to strength and quickness on the other side of the battle, and compromise had never been part of his way.

His thoughts were broken as Vasquez rode up beside him, lounging in his saddle and grinning. ‘Taking charge of us, _cuchillero_?’ 

He looked every inch the flashy vaquero, all shiny silver, guns at his waist and spurs jingling, and Billy half-smiled back. ‘Easy job. Any outlaws will hear you coming a mile off; they won’t come near.’ 

‘You want them to?’ 

‘Need the practice: I haven’t thrown a knife at a living soul in nearly two years.’

Vasquez shook his head. ‘We won’t see much action. Sam, now he is marshal, he takes things seriously, he has rounded up every wrongdoer within twenty miles.’ 

Billy grinned back. ‘Except us.’ Vasquez’ easy good humour had always made him one of the few people in Rose Creek to see behind Billy’s stiff exterior, someone he could count as a true friend. 

‘Should you be out here so recognisable? Still a price on your head.’ Vasquez’ volunteering to accompany the train had surprised him, though he supposed his motives must match his own. 

Vasquez grinned wider. ‘No worries, _amigo_. Sam, he did me a favour, he cannot make the warrant vanish - ’ he flicked a hand in illustration – ‘but he spread the word different ways, Vasquez the outlaw, he is dead, Vasquez he is caught, he is gone back south, and now I am Vasquez the farmhand, anyone will tell you.’ 

‘You don’t look like a farmhand,’ said Billy. 

Vasquez eyed him up and down in reaction. ‘What about you? You are also wanted, no?’ 

Billy shook his head. ‘Long time ago now, and I can take care of anyone comes after me. Always have.’ 

‘Like you did with Goodnight?’ asked Vasquez, eyebrow raised.

‘Successful strategy,’ said Billy with a satisfied smirk.

 

The first evening’s camp was cheerful, journey begun, the homesteaders settling to the new rhythm of their days. Smoke smudged up as women rattled pots over cookfires, children chased between the wagons and oxen grazed knee-deep in the lush grass. Billy sat with Vasquez and Teddy around their own fire, the three of them easier together than he’d expected: Teddy still treated all of them with a wary deference, Billy more than the others, but the experience of Bogue’s attack had altered him too, given him confidence in his own courage. Vasquez seemed distracted, and Billy offered him their bottle. ‘Dreaming of home?’ 

Vasquez huffed a laugh. ‘One day out? It is a long time since I did this; I have got too used to sleeping in a bed.’ 

Billy snickered. ‘Going soft? Be a long while before I’ve spent more nights in a bed than by a campfire.’ 

‘You never stay anywhere before Rose Creek?’ asked Teddy. 

‘Sometimes,’ said Billy, ‘few days here, few weeks there. Work, now and then. But never anywhere long.’ 

‘You must have seen more places than any of us.’ 

Billy shrugged. ‘Goody and I saw a lot of places, a few big towns, a lot of small ones, and mostly they were pretty much the same. Some good, some bad, but not very different.’ 

‘You ever see a really big city? Santa Fe, San Francisco, maybe?’ Teddy’s face was eager. 

‘Once,’ said Billy shortly. Teddy’s expression asked for more, but his throat closed on the words. San Francisco was a rush of fragmented memory, the whirl of confusion when he was fresh off the ship, land pitching under him like the sea, the first new city in a new land where everything was strange, dress, writing, buildings, the press of people. Goody was the only person to whom he’d even tried to explain those times, his words halting and vague; he couldn’t begin to articulate it here. 

‘Odessa is the big city, no?’ said Vasquez easily, filling the silence, and Billy warmed with gratitude. 

‘Big enough for me,’ said Teddy. ‘Ain’t never seen much, I was small when my folks came out here.’ 

Billy turned to Vasquez. ‘Thought you aimed to go up north one day. Heard Faraday talk about seeing the mountains and the snow.’ 

‘Yes, we thought.’ Vasquez’ smile flickered and he looked back into the fire. ‘One day.’

 

That night Billy lay down with his head on his saddlebag and looked up at the stars, distant and bright. Slumbering bodies surrounded him, oxen and horses shifting at their tethers, but the first real pang knotted in his chest. _Desert nights_ , Goody had joked, and they all came back to him, the hundreds they had shared, staring up at the sky talking, smoking or just listening to the silence. Then turning to each other, quick and hot with lust or slow and tender with love, pressing back to back to sleep. Soothing Goody’s dreams, stirring to feel an arm across his waist, opening his eyes to that blue gaze and the morning’s smile. Here without him … This was foolish. Goody was a day’s ride away, no more, in their house in Rose Creek, and he pictured him asleep in their bed, the lines in his face smoothed out, peaceful in the faint light from the window. He’d come here to work, to use his skills, to step into his old life again; it was only a month, and he had a job to do, so he tipped his hat over his eyes and settled to sleep.

Two days later, when they reached the fork in the trail where one road curved down into Edison, they found Sam Chisolm waiting for them sitting his black horse, all in black as ever, wearing the silver badge of a US marshal. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said with a broad smile; Billy nodded back, Vasquez said, ‘ _Hola, amigo_ ,’ and Teddy gave him a solemn ‘Mr Chisolm.’ 

‘A band of brothers,’ said Sam cheerfully, ‘or at least half of one.’ 

‘More than enough,’ said Vasquez, ‘with you to tell us what to do.’ 

‘I certainly wouldn’t like to cross us,’ said Sam, swinging his horse into line with theirs. 

‘How is the handsome widow?’ asked Vasquez with a wink. 

‘Stella is well, thank you,’ said Sam, with the hint of embarrassment which always accompanied reference to his new wife; from what Billy had heard him say to Goody, Sam was delighted and astonished in equal measure to find himself a married man. ‘I needn’t ask about Goody being as I saw him so recently. Saw Horne last time too; Faraday I haven’t seen for a while. He doing OK?’ 

‘He’s certainly back to cheating at poker,’ said Billy dryly. 

‘Still sore?’ scoffed Vasquez. He turned to Sam. ‘Yes, he is well. Training horses, these days.’ 

‘Good trade for him,’ said Sam, ‘glad to hear he’s back to himself.’ 

‘He is,’ said Vasquez seriously, ‘though it has been difficult.’ 

‘He took his time to pull through, right enough. We all owe him more than we can repay.’ 

‘He does not like to hear that,’ said Vasquez, frowning slightly, ‘it is not …’ 

Sam shook his head. ‘He’s a brave man, no one can deny it. We’ll miss him here.’

‘Won’t miss the card tricks,’ said Teddy. ‘Seen Red recently?’ 

‘I have,' said Sam, smile flashing. ‘Came with us tracking a train robber just a few weeks ago. Can’t rival him on that – fellow never heard him coming, and we caught him at his camp with two hands full of roasted jackrabbit. He goes off after his own ends that I don’t rightly understand, but he circles back to Edison sooner or later; still can’t convince him to sleep inside a house.’ 

‘Always did say he had his own path.’ 

Sam nodded. ‘Never be as easy for him as it is for us, and you can’t blame him for that. Now if you’ll pardon me, I should pay my proper respects to our employer.’ And with a wink he swung his horse into the train, riding up the line to the lead wagon. 

Billy slowed his horse, letting himself slide backward along the strung-out train until he was alone in the haze of dust behind. _Us?_ He was too controlled to let his expression change, but he felt the words as though he’d bitten into an apple and found it unexpectedly sour. That Sam should bracket the four of them so simply together – black, white, Mexican, Asian, civilised people – came as no surprise, but it pressed on a bruise which never entirely healed. Of course, to Sam, to the others, he was just Billy, one of them. But the world didn’t shape itself that way; even in Rose Creek, friendly though the townsfolk were, men like him were not equal, and saying it wouldn’t make it so.

 

Travel this way was a slow business, urging the patient oxen on under the yoke, heaving wagons around obstacles, stopping to tend to cracked wheels or leaking waterbuckets, and Billy’s role, all their role, was bound to the tempo of the creaking train, trailing along at front or back, peeling off in company to scout or hunt. They made a good team, Sam calm and authoritative, Vasquez lively and dangerous, Billy composed and menacing, and compared to the practically-clad homesteaders, they stood out in their striking outfits, boots fit for riding rather than walking, flashing with weapons as they paced their mounts alongside the lumbering wagons. No one could mistake the admiring glances of the farmer boys, and the farmer girls, respectable white women though they might be, looked at them sideways when they thought no one saw and sighed just a little. Even Teddy, riding alongside them, picked up some of their glamour despite his workaday appearance, though he seemed largely embarrassed by the attention. The four of them camped and ate by themselves, but there was no shortage of young women offering water or food when they stopped for the night; Sam thanked them gravely and politely, Vasquez flashed his grin and flirted to see them blush, but Billy held himself silent and reserved, slipping a hand inside his coat to touch a finger to the cool metal there.

By day the landscape was full of life, bright flowers brushing at boots and hooves as they passed, vultures soaring in the huge bowl of the sky, prairie hens scuttling away underfoot, rabbits starting and bounding; by night, when Billy woke to take his watch the plain stretched still and empty around them, nothing to disturb the ringing silence but the shuffles and snorts of their own animals and the occasional distant cry of a nightbird. He came easily from sleep to full awareness, but always lay for a moment or two looking up at the stars, certain at some level of his mind that Goody was asleep behind him on his bedroll next to the fire, breathing shallow and restless, and that when his watch was done he would walk over quietly to lie down pressed against his back and feel him sigh into deeper sleep as Billy’s presence seeped into his dreams.

He rose quietly and padded his way beyond the slumbering homesteaders and tethered animals, finding Vasquez a dark shape sitting still and alert in the faint starlight. ‘Quiet night,’ he said as Billy folded himself silently beside him. 

‘Nothing but,’ said Billy. Vasquez huffed, and rather than head straight to his bedroll he stayed sitting beside him, staring off into the night and running a bandana absently through his fingers. 

Billy recognised the meaning of his silence. Vasquez’ understanding with Faraday had come as a greater surprise to the two of them than to Goody and himself, and in the difficult weeks when Faraday hovered on the threshold between life and death Vasquez had turned to them as the only ones to whom he could safely reveal his emotion. The edge of anxiety lay unspoken between them: _Do you miss him?_ he wanted to ask. _Do you wish he was here? Are you glad he’s safe at home?_ But he didn’t know how to say it, so he said nothing and lit a cigarette, flicking the spent match into the darkness. 

‘Sam is wrong,’ said Vasquez suddenly, ‘he thinks of Joshua Faraday when he met him, and that man would have come with us and be causing trouble here. But Sam thinks he is still the same, because he has not seen him so close …’ He sighed. ‘I should have cut more wood, he will try to chop it himself.’ 

‘It’s only a few weeks,’ said Billy, ‘and Goody will look out for him.’ 

‘I asked him to,’ said Vasquez, to his surprise. ‘You and Goodnight, he does not mind so much. But at the farm, it is difficult.’ 

‘I thought you were good at the farm,’ said Billy, confused. ‘I thought you liked it.’ 

‘I do,’ said Vasquez. ‘It is a good life. I am a man of many skills, but farming is what I grew up with.’ 

‘Ever think you’d settle in Rose Creek?’ 

Teeth flashed white in the dark. ‘Rose Creek? No, I did not expect that, but somewhere like it? Yes. All these years, I run from trouble, to trouble, always just me, but that road leads nowhere, to the noose. Find a place, find a lover, settle down, work ... it’s what we all want. Look at these people.’ 

‘My kind don’t farm,’ said Billy staring off into the dark, ‘we weren’t brought here for that.’ 

‘So your trade is knives and guns. Always?’ 

‘Mostly,’ said Billy. 

His past might be a place off-limits to all but Goody, but Vasquez wasn’t the man to be put off by a short answer. ‘You could learn to farm. Dig, hoe, tend the animals – there is no shame in it. Everyone must eat.’ 

‘I never gave a thought to settling. Never expected it.’ 

Vasquez laughed softly at that. ‘Don’t get what we expect, _cuchillero_.’ He stood up and stretched, stuffing the bandana into his pocket. ‘Rose Creek is a good place, as good as any.’

Good as any? He wondered as Vasquez’ tread faded behind him. Certainly the folk of Rose Creek were welcoming; they counted all seven of them as their saviours, even Red Harvest, silent and farouche though he still was, and when Goody and he had decided to stay the town had embraced them wholeheartedly. They were friendly to him, the only man of his race in the town, they made sure to be; for many he suspected he was the only Asian they’d ever actually talked to. Goody tried to smooth over the subtle awkwardness, but experience had taught him to be sensitive to the tick of unease that inevitably greeted him. It didn’t help that he had no defined role within the town: he had worked at the reconstruction alongside other willing volunteers, but he was no labourer; his particular skills of controlled violence and proficiency in dealing death were hardly in demand among godfearing farmers and storekeepers. 

He took out Goody’s flask, uncapped it and drank, then turned it in his hands. It was true, staying in town had crept up on him: first they had been too ill to leave their beds, then Goody’s slow recovery had stretched over the winter, travel out of the question, and once spring had come the idea of staying had blossomed into life. When the prospect of their own place had become real Billy had thrown himself into it wholeheartedly, Goody’s evident happiness encouraging him to set aside his concerns. Privacy, comfort, safety: a short separation seemed a small price to pay. 

 

The trail was well-worn, from one river to the next, and the chances of trouble low, though low was not none. Out in the open country a slow-moving wagon train made a tempting target, and there was always the chance of an opportunistic attack by petty thieves, while an organised and ruthless gang of road agents could offer a more serious threat. Billy spent some of his time riding ahead of the train to scout, checking that the trail was clear of obstructions natural or deliberate, and he enjoyed those times, leaving the dust of the toiling wagons behind and giving his horse its head until he was the only person in the landscape, just him moving across the plain under the wide sky, or perched up on a height to scan like a soaring bird.

He felt Goody’s absence far more sharply than he’d anticipated. He missed him, literally missed him out on the trail. This had been their life for nine years – riding from town to town, always on the move: nights under clear starry skies and cold soaked nights, fine suppers and poor ones, washing in clear creeks and hot baths on the first night in a new town, nightmares and injuries, glorious sunsets and breathtaking dawns, and all of it, always, together. Goody talking, Goody telling jokes and laughing at them himself, Goody sleepy or irritable or anxious or bubbling over with enthusiasm. He must be there, a turn of the head away, across the fire, somewhere at the other end of the wagon train. Billy found himself half-turned in the saddle, canteen in hand, to offer it to a phantom in a grey coat beside him, or reaching for the second coffee cup to fill it; at one point he’d touched a match to two cigarettes between his lips before he caught himself. He missed him more in those moments than any other, with a pang of wrongness, of dislocation, that he felt at his deepest core, and while his gestures were too small for anyone else to notice, one man watched and recognised what he saw.

In the evening Billy sat at a little distance from the fire, idly spinning a knife in his hand to keep his reflexes sharp, the low talk between Sam, Vasquez and Callihan, the train’s leader, drifting over to him. After a while Sam got up and came to drop down next to him. ‘Quiet without him, ain’t it? Proves that any two ordinary men are no match for him in the conversation stakes.’ 

‘Couldn’t believe it when we first took up together,’ said Billy. ‘He just never seemed to stop.’ 

‘We’ll have a thin time of it to Odessa, just us four poor conversationalists. You know the only time I ever knew him go quiet?’ Memory warmed Sam’s face with amusement. Billy shook his head: he’d heard plenty about Goody and Sam’s adventures, but this was new. ‘Was after we’d been riding a few months, up in Kansas. We quarrelled, and he refused to speak to me for two days straight. Total silence, morning, noon and night. I honestly didn’t think he had it in him.’ 

‘He never told me that,’ said Billy, ‘what were you quarrelling about?’ 

Sam looked sheepish. ‘Well, it started out as a dispute over the right way to make biscuits, though it ranged wider as it went on; by the end we were cursing each other’s grandpas and criticising each other’s shooting abilities. You know how it goes.’ 

‘Not really,’ said Billy. 

‘Well, maybe he’s more afraid of you than he was of me,’ said Sam with a wry smile.

‘So how did it end, the quarrel?’ asked Billy. 

‘Oh, we came to a lakeside end of the second day to camp, and I snuck up on him and threw him in the lake. Then he came out all dripping and furious and threw me in the lake, and then we stood in the water and started laughing.’ 

Billy smiled at the vision. ‘I can just see it.’

Sam looked at him sideways. ‘Must be strange without him. We only rode together a year or so, but I sometimes still miss him now, the poetry, and the way he could charm people. Could have used it on a trip like this.’ 

Billy felt wrongfooted, uncomfortable at having allowed himself to give away so much. ‘There was no need for him to come: he’s better at home.’ 

‘Think he’ll be all right?’ It was the question he didn’t want to be asked, sparking irritation from the flint of his guilt, and Billy’s answer came sharper than he intended. ‘It’s just a month. And he’s been more settled since we got our place, you’ve seen him.’ 

Sam nodded solemnly. ‘Building the house was a step for him, never thought I’d see him as keen on hard work.’ 

‘I know,’ said Billy, remembering Goody so enthused, so well, tanned and strong, up on the roof hammering shingles, swearing in French when he dropped a nail, covered in dust and sweat and smiling a mile wide as his vision took shape under his hands. ‘It’s been good for him.’ 

‘We can all see it suits him; authoring comes natural to him, and after he was hurt… but I can understand settling down comes harder to you.’ 

Billy flinched at the probing, even from someone who knew them as well as Sam, and at the accusation he heard behind it. ‘Can you?’ 

Sam looked at him steadily. ‘Well, comes harder to me than I anticipated. And Rose Creek’s a small place.’ 

‘Where I don’t fit in?’ 

‘Wasn’t implying …' started Sam, but Billy rode over him. ‘You don’t have to _imply_. You were talking about Red Harvest.’ 

‘Well, yes,’ said Sam, face creasing in confusion. 

‘Us, you said, Red on one side, an Indian, different and _us_ , the rest of us. But it’s not.’

‘Don’t rightly follow your meaning,’ said Sam, and Billy scowled, angry at his inability to say what he meant, and at a new pang of missing Goody, who never failed to understand him. 

‘You’re right, there’s no place for me in Rose Creek. They’re not going to make me sheriff, are they? Or marshal like you. The land for the house – it’s Goody’s, not mine, he was the one had to buy it, a bargain between white men, citizens.’ He was tripping over his words, trying to stop it coming out wrong. ‘I wouldn’t get to keep the house on my own, even though I built it. I’m not like you or Vasquez or Teddy.’

Sam frowned, taken aback by the uncharacteristic flow of words he’d triggered. ‘You’re more than your race.’ 

‘Tell that to the bank,’ said Billy, coldly furious. ‘Tell it to the state of California.’

‘Surely Goody …’ 

Billy cut him off. ‘Goody needs me, we both know that, but I’m not a servant.’ His voice dropped to a hiss. ‘A _houseboy_. A _laundryman_. My trade is fighting and there’s no market for it there.’ 

Sam put a hand on his shoulder, but Billy shook it off. ‘Billy, I wouldn’t try to tell you ….’ 

‘Good,’ said Billy, staring him out, and after a while Sam got up and left him alone. 

 

The days were long, dusty and dull, the nights quiet and sedate, and the train hauled on, passing gradually into wilder territory: the land became more arid, the trail rougher and less well-used, the howl of coyotes closer at night. Trouble came, predictably, as they tackled the hardest point of the journey, where the trail dipped to cross a river, broad and fast-flowing, and deep enough that the wagons had to be unloaded to float across, the oxen and mules had to swim, and bales and boxes to be carried head-high above the water.

It was the perfect place for an ambush: the crossing would slow and split their party, trees on either side of the bank provided cover, and where the trail emerged on the far shore it ran through a narrow defile where one or two men could easily box them in. Sam surveyed it with a practised eye. 

‘Don’t like the lie of it: I say we work two and two. Teddy and I’ll cross over with Callihan’s wagon first; Billy, Vasquez, stay out of sight this side unless it’s plain you’re needed – that should weight the scales in our favour some.’ Billy nodded his agreement, feeling the first prickle of anticipation run up his spine, as though the crowd had fallen back and made way for him to step forward into the arena.

He and Vasquez waited a little way down the bank, horses shifting uneasily beneath them, as the train pulled up by the water and the homesteaders began the long business of unhitching the yokes and emptying the wagons. The sounds of bellowing oxen and general commotion carried clear, followed by splashes and shouts as the crossing began. Billy loosened the gun in his holster and caught Vasquez’ expression from the corner of his eye. ‘Protection’s what we’re paid for.’ 

‘And I will do my job, always. But I do not go looking for danger, eager like a lover.’

Guilt rose heavy and cold in Billy’s chest again. ‘You’ve never run from a fight.’ 

‘I am not running now, _chingado_ , and I will outshoot you no problem.’ 

‘You feel it, though,’ challenged Billy, ‘I’ve seen you. That’s why you’re here.’ 

‘No,’ said Vasquez. ‘For a long time, maybe, but that road leads to death, we all know that. Didn’t you learn from Rose Creek?’ 

‘Seems you came off easiest,’ said Billy, nettled, ‘all that shooting and only a graze to your arm. How can it scare you?’ 

Vasquez bared his teeth humourlessly. ‘I am not scared. Another man I would show not. But I saw your injuries, Goody’s, I see Joshua’s. Do they teach you nothing?’

Billy opened his mouth to snarl a reply, but as he did a shot cracked loud and high, and he snapped to painful alertness. An unsettling silence followed, the only sound the rushing of the water. ‘One up, one down,’ he said briefly, turning his horse’s head, and Vasquez jerked his chin in reply, moving swiftly off down the bank in the opposite direction.

When he was out of sight and sound of the crossing Billy found a place where he could urge his reluctant horse down the rocks and into the water to swim against the current, tumbling from his back when they emerged in the shallows opposite to lead him up the far bank. He threaded swiftly back through the trees, then dismounted, leaving his hat on the horn of the saddle, and moved forward soundlessly on foot, knife in hand, the world in sharp focus around him. No further shots had carried from the crossing, and as he approached he could see the first of the ox-teams stopped mid-stream, the rest huddled on the far bank, and Sam and Teddy on the near shore facing five men fanned out on horseback around them. 

Billy had met more than a few robbers of this type, and these seemed at the professional end, their weapons and clothes good-quality, their horses sound: specialist road agents, the crossing their regular ambush. Men of this kind weren’t likely to panic and start shooting indiscriminately, but they were also unlikely to be easily cowed. Sam sat his horse as cool as ever, but Teddy’s hands were nervous on the reins; Callihan had left his wagon and was standing behind them in the shallows hefting a shotgun, his family fighting to control their animals in the water.

A movement closer to twitched at his attention and the patterns of leaf and shadow ahead of him resolved themselves into the back of a man in a hide jacket, also intent on the scene at the ford, rifle trained on the figures there. This was too good an opportunity to turn the balance: thought, eye and hand moved fluidly as one, the knife spun through the air and Billy strode up to catch the man as he crumpled silently to the ground. 

Slipping into his place he was close enough to hear the rider at the centre of the group, his pale duster coat pulled back to show the twin pistols at his belt, addressing Sam, pleasant as though they were neighbours passing the time of day. ‘… think better of your odds than I do. There’s guns trained on you left and right: a wet-eared boy and a farmer aren’t going to be much help to you.’ 

‘I have faith,’ said Sam, and Billy caught a hint of movement beyond him in the trees opposite. ‘As I said, you’d be advised to back off peaceful.’ 

‘Don’t see anything to be afraid of here,’ sneered the man next to him, his long hair tied back to show two missing ears. ‘Just hand over your weapons and then we’ll take a look at these good folks’ belongings.’ 

‘Think of it as a tithe,’ says the leader, ‘like in the Good Book.’ 

‘God will strike you down,’ said Callihan loudly, gesturing with his gun, and the man nearest to him, bald and tall, laughed heartily. 

‘Call on him as much as you like, sodbuster – he’s never listened yet.’ 

_Angel of death_ , whispered Goody’s voice in his ear, and Billy sighted along the rifle, squeezing the trigger as soft as a feather. As the shot cracked the man stiffened in his saddle; his companions jerked, cursing in shock and reached for their guns. But Sam’s hand dipped, lightning fast, putting a bullet in the leader’s chest as he was still raising his pistol, an echoing blast of shotgun pellets making the horses start and shy. 

Crop-ear took aim at Teddy, and Billy saw him clutch at his gun, pale-faced, too slow, and came running out, blades sweeping from their sheaths, but two shots hit simultaneously to send him reeling, one from Sam’s chrome pistol and one from Vasquez’ pearl-handled gun where he stood among the trees opposite. Billy’s arm whipped back and sent the fourth man slumping on his horse, the knife hilt-deep in his back; the last turned to flee, but went down to another shot from Vasquez.

‘Never got the chance to introduce you two,’ said Sam dryly, dismounting to check the bodies. 

‘One more back there,’ said Billy briefly. ‘Any others?’ 

‘Not any more,’ said Vasquez, joining them with a sharklike grin. 

‘God is not mocked,’ said Callihan piously, and Billy caught Vasquez’ eye as he bent to retrieve his knives. 

‘Nice work, _cabrón_.’ He could see his own euphoria reflected in Vasquez’ face: inside he felt alive, all of a piece again, the spark of pride fanned to a living flame. 

Teddy squatted down next to Sam by the bald man’s corpse. ‘You’re hurt.’ 

The stain on his arm was hard to see against his dark shirt, but Sam shook his head. ‘Just a graze, son. Seen worse.’ He stood up. ‘I’d guess they made this their regular payday; I’ll speak to the marshal in Odessa.’ His face relaxed into a smile. ‘And thanks. Earned our money today.’ 

The crossing was still to be done, and though there were had no hidden snags or dips, even so it was laborious, and by the time it was done they were all soaked through and quaking with effort with no appetite to do more than set up camp and start drying out, the job of reloading left until the morning. Wagon canvases were stretched out to dry, coats and trousers hung up and children ran around in their underwear. Four homesteaders took the bodies away for a hasty burial, and Billy saw Vasquez hauling buckets of water for a smiling farmer girl and Teddy tending to the horses. He walked down the bank a little by himself among the trees, away from the clamour and activity; largely indifferent to discomfort, he’d dried out enough for himself, and his matches and cigarettes in their metal case had escaped unscathed. 

He found a flat boulder where he could sit alone and smoke, watching the roiling water as it leapt and foamed over hidden rocks, calming in sudden eddies, then surging on again, ceaseless and powerful. The camp weighed on him, alive with shared relief at the danger averted, proof for the godfearing of the righteousness of their lives, proof for men like him of nerve and speed and skill. He could tip his hat to the grateful homesteaders, accept the claps of thanks and praise on his shoulder, but guilt ground in him like the stones along the river’s bed.

It didn’t take Sam to say it: Goody needed him, his arms to comfort, his voice to calm, his sleeping warmth to soothe his dreams; he needed a watchful companion, a protector, an anchor. And Billy had left him without that. _Only a month_ , Goody had said, reassuring, and Billy said it now, though it calmed him no more than it could the tumbling water. _Just a month_.


	4. Chapter 4

Odessa. Not quite the big city, but compared to Rose Creek it was a metropolis: more than one street, lined with businesses, everything you could look for and then some – tailors, watchmakers, milliners, gunsmiths – even a theatre, and a Chinatown, its cramped alleyways full of teahouses, tiny shops and market stalls. The thoroughfares were thronged with riders and carriages, the sidewalks crowded, and grand houses flanked the road where it wound up into the slopes behind. 

Such prosperous streets would plainly not welcome a train of wagons; the four of them as escort had seen Callihan and his companions safe to the camp at the town limits where a much greater company of homesteaders waited to move out. The three weeks from Rose Creek had been the shortest and easiest part of their journey; from here they would continue as part of the larger train in the hope of building up a home once more in greener and more forgiving lands. Billy had stood beside Sam to shake their hands and wish them luck, then watched as their tiny train dissolved into the greater one like a stream flowing into a river.

‘A job well done,’ approved Sam, ‘we should congratulate ourselves. And I think we’ve earned a little comfort.’ He tilted his head theatrically. ‘I hear the siren song of a proper mattress.’ 

‘Plate of decent food is calling my name,’ said Vasquez, ‘a big plate,’ and Teddy narrowed his eyes. ‘Reckon I can hear the whisky bottle faint too.’ 

‘Quite a clamour,’ said Sam with a rumbling laugh, and they trotted away down the main street.

 

Billy’s mood should have been as celebratory as theirs, pay well earned, and no more swallowing dust or heaving at broken axles, but riding into town brought with it a jarring sense of wrongness. Arriving in a new place with Goody was a routine honed over long years together: leaving their horses at the livery, sizing up the possibilities for earning money, clattering up the stairs of a boarding-house or saloon and falling into a smiling embrace with the turn of the key in the door. This – this was like a reflection in a broken mirror, the same elements there clear to see, but displaced, fragmented, the image distorted and strange.

Outside the boarding house they split three ways, Sam to speak to the marshal about the road agents, Vasquez to stable the horses, Billy and Teddy to engage rooms. The clerk, incurious and distant, slid two keys across the counter; Billy took one and handed the other to Teddy. ‘You and Sam, me and Vas,’ he said briefly; an edge of awkwardness still lingered between him and Sam after their quarrel which neither of them seemed able to address. 

When he unlocked the door and stepped into the room, time abruptly lurched to a stop. He’d slept in a hundred rooms like this: the tattered curtain, the narrow brass-framed beds, the cracked basin on the chest, the devotional text on the wall, years of memories distilled down into this one dusty space. Out on the trail he’d been certain that Goody was close by, somewhere just out of sight, about to ride up beside him or sitting on the other side of the fire, but here there could be no escaping the ringing absence. 

He crossed the few paces to the window and stood looking out, the shuffle and thud as Teddy moved about next door audible above the faint noise from the street. Goody should be here: he should be hanging his coat on the bedpost, gathering his gear for the bath, making promises about dinner, about how they’d scare up some opposition for a contest, and Billy should be listening tolerantly as he laid out his own things, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. The first night in a new town Goody was always full of energy and enthusiasm, and Billy would look at him sideways with affectionate amusement, an unspoken promise of things to come. 

It was as though the door had opened into another life. He saw it sharp and clear: this was what might have been, after the fight with Bogue. It could so easily have happened; Goody didn’t remember the worst of it, but he did. Of the two of them he’d been the less hurt, and those first few days back to consciousness he’d fought so hard to stay awake, not for himself but so he could be there to drag Goody back to stay with him. He’d been so pale, arm and leg broken, bullet wounds, fevered: every time Billy woke up his first and only thought had been to reach out and feel him still warm and breathing at his side. If he hadn’t come through … Billy could have ridden away from Rose Creek, in company, maybe good company, but alone.

Goodnight Robicheaux was the fault line that lay across his life, dividing it into _before_ , a cold time remembered with nothing but pity for the man he’d been, before he’d really known he was alive, and _after_ , when companionship and warmth and poetry came into his life, and a joy he’d thought lost to him before he even came to America. _Goody needs me_ , he’d said, and it was true, but in this dusty room with the faded bedcovers he realised the abyss of his own need as surely as though the floor had cracked open at his feet. 

 

A heavy tread approached along the corridor and Vasquez filled the doorway, bag on his shoulder. ‘You all right, _cuchillero_?’ he asked, and Billy realised he’d been standing as though paralysed, bag still at his feet. He nodded briefly, moved to the bed and began rifling for clean shirt and underwear. Though it was strange seeing Vasquez pace about, setting out his belongings, whistling under his breath, the company steadied him. 

As he went to hang up his coat he felt the weight in the pocket and took out Goody’s flask, running his thumb absently over the design. He set it on the chest and caught Vasquez raising an eyebrow, but Billy let his own gaze drift to the corner of a tightly-folded paisley bandana just visible in his vest pocket. Vasquez looked down, flushed slightly, then said with a wry grin, ‘We are hard men, no?’ 

‘Why are you here?’ The question had simmered in him since the day of the gunfight and now it came out simple and direct. ‘You said, you don’t go courting danger any more, and there was no need to come, Sam could have found someone else. Why did you come with us?’ 

Vasquez sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, looking at the shirt he was holding. ‘I did not want to come. Joshua told me to.’ 

‘Why did you listen to him?’ 

Vasquez shook his head. ‘You do not understand: he made me go, he insisted. When I said not, he was angry, he said he is a man, he does not need me. But he does.’ He sighed. ‘And I worry. All the time, I worry.’ 

‘Goody dreams,’ said Billy, ‘bad dreams. It’s always close at his back.’ 

‘So why did you come?’ The question, sharp as his own, slid in through his armour to the tender flesh beneath. 

‘To work. Goody told me I should.’ 

‘Of course he did,’ said Vasquez calmly, ‘but why did you come?’ 

Billy stood up, picked up his knifebelt and drew one of the short blades from its sheath, spinning it through his fingers to flicker in the dim light. ‘I know how to fight, to shoot, to kill. That’s my trade. It’s who I am.’ He waited until Vasquez met his gaze. ‘How do you do it, Vas? Set yourself to planting, to digging, to tending cows? Be satisfied with that?’ 

‘I told you, I am not always Vasquez the terrifying outlaw; first I am Manuel the farmer boy. It is not so hard to go back.’ And there it was, the fault line. 

‘I don’t have a past to go back to.’ To say it, in front of someone who wasn’t Goody, seemed a betrayal of himself, and Billy turned his back, staring out of the window, trembling with the stress of forcing the words into the open. ‘I was a labourer. A coolie on a gang. I dug and carted and blasted and dug some more. I fought free, killed men to make my life my own. Billy Rocks isn’t a farmer. He’s not a hired hand or a servant or a laundryman. There’s no place for me in Rose Creek.’ The words sat like a weight on his chest. ‘But Goody – it’s what he wants.’ 

Vasquez laughed, but it was a gentle laugh, warm with understanding. ‘And what do you want?’ He heard a rustle and creak as Vasquez got up, then a hand fell on his shoulder, heavy and reassuring. ‘Billy. Tell me, _amigo_ , was it difficult, to fall in love?’ 

It was startling to hear the word spoken so nakedly in the light of day. He lifted his head, picturing Goody, in shirtsleeves on the bedroll, sitting his horse declaiming poetry, charming a hostile barkeep in a no-mark saloon, looking at him and smiling that crooked smile. His voice was soft. ‘No, it was the easiest thing.’ 

The hand squeezed his shoulder and lifted. ‘So adapt. It’s also easy.’ Vasquez puffed an amused breath. ‘Look at me. I came to Rose Creek because I had nowhere else to go, and I walked straight up against my future. I never thought it would look like it does, but God laughs at our plans, that I do know.’ 

Billy turned around to see his expression hopeful once more. ‘And with Joshua, I laugh too.’ He slapped him on the back. ‘Put the knife away. And come on, Sam and Teddy will be thinking we have killed each other, maybe.’

 

Their first stop was the bathhouse, all of them eager for hot water, soap and a stiff brush to scrub off the ingrained grime of three weeks’ travel. Everyone seemed to have the same idea: the room was crowded with men of all kinds, traders, farmhands, some of the folk from the wagon train, all splashing and shouting while the help hauled fresh buckets non-stop, the air thick with steam. While their tubs were filled they stripped off side by side: Billy felt every inch of his skin itching with grit and sweat, the anticipation of submerging himself in hot clean water almost unbearable. As he tossed his dirty shirt to the floor he heard a low whistle behind him and Teddy commented, ‘Sure are some scars you have there.’ 

Billy turned to face him, unselfconscious: his torso was scattered with scars old and new, the latest bullet wounds still pale puckers alongside faded silvery lines and broader ridges from old fights. 

‘No one lives this life without picking up scars, son,’ said Sam gravely, though his were harder to see in the dim light, ‘even you took yours from Bogue.’ 

Teddy looked down at his arm, embarrassed. ‘Proud to wear it, Mr Chisolm. Got off lightly.’ 

‘You should see Goody’s,’ said Billy, and immediately could have kicked himself for his thoughtlessness. Faraday had never been as confiding with him as he’d been with Goody, finding common ground in their slow recovery, but no one could miss the burns that ridged and thickened his hands and neck, and they’d all seen the extent of his bandages when he was first abed. Billy’s scars, or even Goody’s, paled in comparison, and of course Vasquez, lean and muscular, carried fewest of all. 

‘Sign of a life lived,’ said Sam with finality, and Vasquez, deliberately cheerful, asked, ‘Are we standing about admiring each other, or getting washed so we can drink?’ 

 

Duly scrubbed and presentable, they ate a sedate dinner at the boarding-house then found a saloon fancy enough to satisfy Teddy’s taste for novelty and crowded enough to accommodate them without undue attention, though it seemed that news of their part in the standoff at the ford had travelled fast, earning them a trail of respectful nods and comments as they crossed to a table. The first round of drinks went down easily, the burn of the whisky as welcome as the bath, and Billy went to the bar to fetch the second. 

He was standing, foot on the rail, when a voice behind him exclaimed, ‘Hey, I know you! I’d know you anywhere with those fancy toothpicks: Rocks is the name, ain’t it?’ 

He tensed, bracing himself for trouble, but the man addressing him didn’t seem threatening: he was plainly dressed, slightly flushed with drink and wearing an expression of pleased interest. 

‘And?’ Billy asked warily, casting a glance back to the table where the others were sitting.

‘My brother and I made twenty bucks backing you in a fight, year or two ago. You’re quite the article - real quick.’ The man at his shoulder resembled him so closely that he had to be the brother. 

‘Where was that?’ asked Billy, relaxing again. 

‘Fort Verde. No, but you should have seen him,’ he remarked to the room at large, ‘it was an education. Texan fellow there thought he had a fast draw, but this one – you didn’t see his hand move. And those knives …’ 

‘Glad I was able to help you to a profit.’ 

‘Let us buy you a drink – seems only fair.’ 

‘Appreciate it, but no thanks,’ said Billy, gesturing back to the table. 

‘You here to fight?’ asked the brother eagerly. ‘Because we’d put our money on you no question.’ 

‘Could do,’ said Billy, gloved fists flexing unconsciously. And again he was at a loss: for all those months he spent suspicious and unconvinced that he needed a manager, now where was Goody to put an arm round the man’s shoulders and hatch a plan, to set up the meet, to let him play the taciturn fighter? 

‘Say though,’ said the first man, ‘there’s a place out back of the horse dealer’s where they shoot targets: you could take on the local talent there, make some money.’ 

‘Might be,’ he said, appraising them, ‘I could come, but it would pay both our advantage to keep it quiet.’ 

‘Sure thing, Mr Rocks,’ said the first man, raising his glass conspiratorially.

 

He took the fresh bottle back to the table to confront three pairs of accusing eyes. ‘Should you be considering that?’ asked Sam directly, and the assumption in the question had him bristling instantly. 

‘It’s how I earned my and Goody’s living for the last six years,’ he said shortly, ‘and it’s none of your concern.’ 

‘ _Cuchillero_ , how can you take the risk?’ asked Vasquez, concern in his eyes. 

Billy smiled, showing his teeth. ‘Risk? I’m the best. I’ve been in more fights than you could count and I’ve won them all. I know a hundred tricks to make sure I’m the man walks out of the arena alive. You can come and watch me.’ 

‘ _Idiota_ ,’ said Vasquez, ‘there’s always a first time.’ 

‘Like I said,’ Billy’s tone was deliberately even, ‘none of your concern.’ 

‘I would not be so stupid,’ hissed Vasquez, ‘Joshua cannot do without me, and neither – ‘

Billy crashed the bottle down. ‘Shut up.’ Teddy looked from one to the other of them in consternation. 

‘I will not. I will not carry your corpse home to Goodnight.’ 

The quarrel was beginning to draw attention and Sam leaned forward to intervene. ‘Vasquez, let it go. No need to be talking about taking corpses home.’ 

‘You laugh, but it is serious,’ snarled Vasquez. ‘The job, it is one thing, but this?’ 

‘I don’t need your permission,’ said Billy flatly, ‘any of you.’ 

‘You think it is all the same as before?’ 

‘Nobody’s saying that,’ said Sam, ‘but we all came through.’ 

‘Yes, we all lived. You were not hurt at all, and Billy is well again, and Goodnight too, and Joshua, and we are all as we were.’ 

‘Goody had it hard, and Faraday most of all, everyone knows that. We all owe him. But he’s a tough man to kill.’ 

‘ _Que pendejada_ ,’ spat Vasquez furiously, ‘you, all of you, do not see how he is.’ 

Sam laughed. ‘Come on, this is Joshua Faraday we’re talking about, the man who survived being chased, shot at and then blown up: he’s a walking miracle.’ 

Vasquez thumped his fists on the table, making the glasses bounce and rattle. ‘No, you do not understand. You will not understand. You say you are his friends, yet you close your eyes to what is in front of you. He lost his fingers. He cannot walk without difficulty. He cannot ride for a whole day. He is deaf. And he is ashamed. I do all I can to make it as it was, I tell him what he cannot hear, I built a house to make it easy for him, I keep away the people he does not like to see him; if I died, what would he do?’ 

The three of them stared, shocked to silence by the stark description. ‘I should not be here,’ said Vasquez heavily, standing up. ‘I wish I was not.’ And he stalked out, heads turning curiously after him.

 

The noise of the bar started up again around them, but they sat in silence until Sam said, ‘I’m a damn fool, don’t need anyone to tell me that.’ 

‘He really so bad?’ asked Teddy. ‘I mean, I know how he was hurt, but he recovered, my brother Henry said he was doing fine.’ 

‘Goody once said to me, some paid more than others for Rose Creek, and he was right. After he was well again, I thought it was over.’ Sam’s face was clouded. ‘I’m to blame, for not seeing how it is.’ 

‘We all are,’ said Billy, pushing his glass away untouched. ‘I’ll talk to him.’

 

At the boarding-house he found Vasquez stretched full-length on the bed, running the bandana through his hands again, the room lit only by the open window. Billy hung up his hat and knifebelt, took off his boots and sat on the other bed, back against the headboard. The silence stretched out until Vasquez said tiredly, ‘You are not great company, you know that?’ 

‘Goody does the talking for both of us.’ 

‘You travelled together a long time.’ 

‘Nine years,’ said Billy. 

Vasquez shook his head. ‘Joshua and I, we never travelled together except one time to Rose Creek. I thought he was the most annoying man I ever met.’ 

‘He still is,’ said Billy. He took out a cigarette from his case, lit it and drew on it, then blew a cloud of smoke softly upwards. ‘Here.’ He held it out across the gap between the beds. 

Vasquez rolled over onto his elbow and took it, inhaled and said, ‘ _Mierda_.’ 

‘I didn’t leave enough cigarettes,’ said Billy, ‘he’ll run out.’ 

‘I should have mended the rail in the corral, he leans on it when he is standing for a long time.’ 

‘Manuel, I am sorry.’ 

‘You are still an idiot, to think of fighting.’ The pause was so long that Billy thought he’d stopped talking. ‘It is not all your fault. He comes to see you, because it is just you, and he tells jokes and pretends he is just the same, and like Sam, you say, Joshua, he is well again. He wants to be well.’

‘And we want him to be well too,’ said Billy, ‘and we pretend we don’t see because it pains him, because he saved us.’

Vasquez turned onto his back and sighed long. He took another drag and passed it back. ‘It is not anyone’s fault. It is what happened.’ 

Billy let the smoke coil up slowly. ‘When get back, we will make it different.’ 

‘How?’ asked Vasquez simply. ‘He is Joshua: he does not listen even to me. I thought he had died, and then when he had not, I waited for him to die, and every day was hard.’ Billy made a noise of wordless sympathy. ‘I waited for him to get up, to walk again, to hear him laugh…’ 

Billy was glad of the dark: Vasquez’ voice was unsteady, despite the smoke, his words unable to bear even a lamp’s light. ‘And still he thinks I cannot want to stay with him, that I stay because I must, because I pity him. He says to me, _go_ because he cannot say _stay_.’ 

Billy stretched his arm to take the metal flask from the stand and turned it, looking down. ‘Goody used to tell me, _Go_. He was afraid I would, so he said it before I could. He didn’t think that I could want to stay with him, that he deserved it.’ 

‘And what did you say?’ 

Unseen, Billy smiled at the memory. ‘Nothing. I sat with him, and I smoked, and I listened to his talk, and I never left. And in time, a long time, he came to believe that I would stay. That I wanted to.’ 

‘Even after Rose Creek?’ The question wasn’t unexpected: Billy knew that no one else would ever understand. 

‘Especially after the fight. I never blamed him. Everyone else does, but I don’t. But with Joshua: you have to be patient. This is the hard part. You’ve cared for him and worked for him and protected him: now you have to dig in for the long haul. Just be patient.’ 

He gave him back the cigarette, its glowing tip bright against the darkness, and eventually Vasquez said, ‘ _Gracias_.’ 

Billy said seriously, ‘It’s for us to do too. We need to find a new way, all of us.’

 

When he woke to daylight he saw Vasquez’ bed already empty, his bag gone. Billy swiftly gathered his own belongings and went downstairs to find Teddy still eating breakfast and Vasquez outside determinedly saddling up his horse. ‘Heading out early?’ 

Vasquez nodded. ‘We are just wasting time here. Sam will meet us at the wagon camp: he is with the marshal.’ 

Billy came closer. ‘Could you wait an hour, maybe an hour and a half? Business I need to attend to.’ 

Vasquez’ face closed. ‘ _Cuchillero_ , are you sure? After what you said …’ 

Billy couldn’t repress a half-smile. ‘Yes, I’m sure. Don’t worry. Teddy and I will catch you up.’ And he walked back into the boarding-house leaving Vasquez looking anxiously after him. ‘Come on,’ he said to Teddy, ‘business to see to, and you might want to come.’ 

Teddy shoved back his chair and stood up. ‘Will I need a gun?’ 

‘Unlikely,’ said Billy, deadpan, ‘not unless things go a lot worse than I think.’

 

Odessa was coming to life, stalls setting up and shops opening, carts driving out empty to fetch lumber or grain; Billy led them along the main street, past shopkeepers sweeping dust out of their doorways, the saloon girls sitting outside to catch the sun and apron-clad proprietors exchanging morning gossip. ‘Ain’t this the wrong way?’ asked Teddy nervously. ‘Those men said …’ 

‘This is where we’re going,’ said Billy, ‘stick with me,’ and he took the turn down Odessa’s narrow Chinaman’s Alley, a maze of stalls and little shops already buzzing with activity. 

Billy plunged into the market, among stalls piled high with dried fish and vegetables, medicines, silks and shoes, bargaining for what he needed, and despite himself he couldn’t help warming to Teddy’s evident fascination; he tossed him an early peach and bit into one himself, fleshy and sweet. 

Once he’d tucked a small package of dried abalone into one pocket and of red dates into another Billy crossed the alley to a tiny teahouse and gestured for Teddy to follow him. ‘What about Vasquez? And Mr Chisolm?’ 

‘They’ll wait,’ said Billy, ‘tea won’t hurt.’ And it was hard to say who was the more surprised, him or Teddy, as they sat to be brought teapot and cups. Billy took a deep breath. ‘You were asking about San Francisco,’ he said, and Teddy’s face lit up. 

‘Now that’s a city by anyone’s reckoning: what was that like?’ And he listened, prompting with questions, as Billy found his voice, haltingly at first, describing the buildings and the port, the fog over the bay, the first Chinatown with its carved roofs and balconies and lanterns, and it was new, speaking the past to someone who wasn’t Goody or one of their friends, but he let Teddy’s interest work like a blade into a crack, opening him up just enough to let a shaft of light inside. 

When he’d finished Billy leaned back in his seat, hollowed out by talking, and Teddy said appreciatively, ‘You’ve seen more’n anyone I’ve met, Mr Rocks.’ 

‘Billy,’ said Billy, ‘We’re in a teashop, not a gunfight.’ 

Teddy picked nervously at a splinter in the table and said in a sudden rush, ‘Tell me if I say this out of turn; Mr Chisolm said something to me that made me think maybe you don’t rightly understand what we in Rose Creek feel. The town’s forever grateful for what you all did, and if we’ve made you feel you’re not welcome, that’s our failure, and I’m sorry for it.’

Billy stiffened, self-conscious again. ‘You don’t …’ he started, but Teddy rushed on. ‘You said we wouldn’t make you sheriff, but we sure would – no one would dare step a pace out of line.’ 

The image of himself flashed in Billy’s mind’s eye, an Asian with a bounty on his head, walking the main street with a silver star on his chest to match his knives. It was irresistibly funny, and he laughed quietly. ‘I don’t want to be sheriff.’ 

‘God’s my witness, M- Billy,’ says Teddy earnestly, ‘you don’t have to leave town to find men who look up to you. Maybe not everyone passes the time of day so easy, but that’s because you make them nervous – hell, you make me nervous.’ 

‘I know,’ said Billy. ‘Habit.’ He drained his cup. ‘But one I don’t have to keep working on. Come on. Sam will have had time to catch up with Vas by now, and if they’re not yelling at each other again they’ll be getting impatient.’ 

 

On the way to Odessa their pace had been leisurely, riding beside the wagons with time to talk, to observe, to learn the landscape; on the return, four horsemen alone, they could cover two or three times the distance in a day, clattering briskly over the trail, stopping only briefly to rest their mounts. By the end of the first day they reached the river crossing again and in unspoken agreement set up camp some way along the shore. Vasquez and Sam seemed to Billy to have reached an accommodation, but the aftermath of the quarrel lingered faintly over all of them, their conversation careful and subdued. Rather than sit around the fire as Teddy cooked they wandered in separate directions; Billy took himself away under the trees to the river’s edge where he could stand looking out over the water once more. As he struck a match to light his cigarette he smiled again at the image conjured by Teddy’s words. Billy the sheriff? Not that, but what about Billy the farmhand or the carpenter, Billy the bartender? Could he do it for Goody’s sake, see his knives tarnish, his gun laid on the shelf? 

Where was Goody now? At this time surely he was out on the porch they’d built to catch the setting sun, or perhaps down at the creek with his fishing line where the water pooled brown under the trees. And picturing it, the thought came to him how tiny Rose Creek, where they fished and bathed and filled their bucket, tumbled its way under the cottonwoods to the flats where children splashed and townsfolk walked on the bank in the evening, then on past the old mineworkings to meander out across the plain, coming together with other little rivers, and on again through deep-cut canyons until somewhere they joined a bigger one, maybe even this one, to run together as the great Colorado. Fierce river and little creek, they were one and the same in the end, and the rushing water told him the same as Vasquez: change need not come hard. 

The sudden crack of a twig underfoot made him start from his concentration, and when he lifted his head he wasn’t entirely surprised to see a black-clad figure approaching through the trees. ‘Won’t take anyone by surprise making a racket like that,’ he observed. 

‘Don’t have your skills,’ replied Sam, ‘and sneaking through the undergrowth like a mountain lion I leave to Red these days.’ 

He emerged to stand a little distance away, and Billy gave him his best considering look. ‘Come to push me into the water?’ he asked with the ghost of a smile. Sam’s face split into a grin. ‘I wouldn’t dare.’ 

‘Hope not,’ said Billy absently, gesturing at the space beside him. He waited as Sam settled with his back to the tree and let the silence draw out, smoking his cigarette down, until he sensed him relax. 

Sam took a breath. ‘About …’ he started, but Billy shook his head and held out his hand. Sam clasped it solemnly, and with a smirk and a swift tug Billy hauled him off balance, using the momentum to swing him round and pitch him full-length into the shallows. The surprise on Sam’s face was truly comic, and when he stood up _dripping and furious_ summed it up perfectly. 

‘You sneaky bastard!’ Billy doubled up with silent laughter as Sam floundered along the shallows, grasping after his hat, but he was too alert to be caught unawares when he suddenly lunged up the bank with a roar, ‘I will be avenged!’ 

‘No chance, old man.’ Billy dodged nimbly through the trees, Sam fast on his heels, but the mocking glance he cast over his shoulder proved fatal as he abruptly collided with a six-foot wall of grinning muscle. 

‘Going somewhere, _cuchillero_?’ asked Vasquez lazily. 

‘No!’ cried Billy as Sam seized him from behind, lifted him bodily and tossed him into the water. 

When he surfaced, shaking his head and swearing, he saw Sam leaning with one hand on a treetrunk, panting, as Vasquez bent to rescue the hat which was floating past. ‘You two, you are like children,’ he said reprovingly. 

‘That a fact?' asked Sam, catching Billy’s eye, and Vasquez held up both hands, retreating in sudden alarm as Billy advanced dripping on him from one side and Sam from the other. ‘I do not play such –' 

‘On three,’ said Sam, and the splash he made as he hit the water was the most satisfying yet. 

 

‘Yesterday’s bath not sufficient for you?’ asked Teddy as they returned to the fire and peeled off boots and socks to dry. 

‘Cold water invigorates and clears the mind,’ said Sam, ‘though we could build the fire up just the same. And we’ll all be taking another soaking tomorrow when we cross over.’ 

Teddy shared round the plates and they settled to eat, Billy’s shoulders occasionally shaking at the memory. 

Sam continued, ‘Should be able to make good time after that - I think we all have reason to want to be back sooner rather than later.’ 

‘Why you?’ asked Vasquez curiously. ‘You think the town has been overrun by outlaws because you are not there?’ 

‘Unlikely, given I took the dangerous ones with me. But, well,’ and Billy thought he detected a slight flush to his cheeks, ‘thing is, changes are coming for me. Stella is … that is to say, Stella and I will be having a child in the winter.’ 

‘A baby!’ says Vasquez. ‘ _Felicitaciones, amigo_.’ 

‘Goody will be delighted,’ says Billy, ‘and also annoyed that he wasn’t the first to know.’ 

‘Calls for a health to you and your family,’ said Teddy, producing the bottle. 

‘So,’ said Sam, dipping his head in thanks, ‘I’ll be a little more settled myself in the future, and I can’t say I’ll miss sleeping on the hard ground.’ 

‘You think? Vasquez scoffed. ‘In a few years you’ll be taking them camping with Red; hard work’s only just beginning.’ 

Sam was almost successful in hiding his wince and hastily changed the subject. ‘Been thinking further on what you said about Faraday’s new trade: if he does well with the horses, you might make more of it. We’ve a horse dealer in Edison, but he’s one sly customer; I’ve heard many folk complain of the poor bargain they’ve got from him. If Faraday thought to get premises in town, there’d be plenty in Edison and round about would be pleased to get a decent horse at a fair price.’ 

Vasquez’ face brightened, then clouded again. ‘It is a fine idea, though it would not …’ Then he caught Billy’s look and let out the rest of his breath. ‘It is a good idea; I will say to him.’

‘Be good for the town right enough,’ commented Teddy, ‘bring in more folk to trade.’ 

‘What about you, son,’ asked Sam, ‘You’ve seen Odessa: Rose Creek going to be big enough for you now?’ 

‘Odessa was worth seeing,’ said Teddy seriously, ‘never been somewhere that big, and Billy here was telling me about San Francisco too, and maybe I’ll go there one day. But I’m not looking to leave. Like you said, I fought for Rose Creek, and shed blood for it’ – he nodded at Billy – ‘nowhere near as bad as you or Mr Robicheaux, of course, nor Mr Horne: my Lord, when I saw him shot with those arrows, I never thought I’d dance at his wedding: strange how it all falls out. But Billy’s right, one small town’s pretty much like the other – Edison, Junction City, they’re none of them so different, and Rose Creek’s a fine place.’ 

 

The night was still and calm, and Billy lay awake for a while, listening to the rushing water and the almost inaudible stamp and splash among the trees of animals come to drink. The ribbon of the trail stretched before them, and day by day they would wind it up, coming back to where they started, returning home. But in their absence the landscape had shifted, settling into new forms, the future becoming tangible: Sam was riding back to a family, Vasquez to nudge his partner into a new business, and him … Billy wondered, for all he had talked of the future with Goody, had laboured beside him to create it with each blow of the axe, each pass of the plane, each strike of a nail, had he ever truly believed in it? But now, for the first time, he could see it for himself, its outline cloudy and vague still, but real, as real as the ground beneath him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to wanderingsmith for getting me over the hump with this chapter.

Billy urged his tired horse along the road past the Grays’ farm, patting his neck encouragingly: just one last mile. It had been a long day, and a series of long days before that: they had all pushed their journey, each start early and each camp late, making up time day by day, eager to be home. He had reached town long after dark, leaving Vasquez and Teddy to make their way on to the farm while he set off along the winding road home, the anticipation of reunion bringing a smile to his lips. Goody would be surprised, seeing him earlier than he counted on, and Billy had dwelt on the sweetness of the moment when he would walk through the door into the warm light of the lamp, finding Goody with long legs stretched out in front of the hearth, letting his book fall to the floor, or perhaps leaning on the rail of the back porch smoking in the evening dark, turning at the sound of his boots to flash that crooked smile and wrap him into a tobacco-scented kiss. A month had been too long. 

At the bend in the road his horse whickered, recognising journey’s end, and he looked down at the house in its hollow, its windows unexpectedly dark. Was he abed? Or out? His visions of return swirled and reformed: would he find Goody half-woken from sleep, slide into bed beside him still gritty from the trail and feel him warm and loose-limbed against him as he kissed him awake? Could he light the lamp and be at home waiting when he returned, expectations reversed as Goody came clattering down the path to fall into his arms? He slipped down from the saddle, leaving the reins trailing, and opened the door with a low questioning ‘Goody?’ 

He stood in the darkened main room, hesitating, and the still of an empty house closed in around him: Goody must be out, and a cold homecoming for him after all. But his skin prickled with a creeping unease at the wrongness he sensed in the air; it was chilly, stale, unstirred. He struck a match to light the lamp, and as the flame swelled to reveal the room anxiety squirmed to life in his gut in recognition of what he saw. Goody’s papers lay fallen scattered from his desk, his pen laid down and dried out; the dishes, still on the table, were dry and crusted. This was not the casual negligence of everyday living, of dinner made and uncleared, of work laid by for an hour: this was no one’s home. Goodnight had ridden with him on the journey, a ghost at his shoulder, and now, in the place where he should be, Billy found only absence. ‘Goody?’ he asked the empty room, pointlessly.

He lifted the lamp and pushed open the door to the bedroom. The air was as cold and lifeless as the rest of the house, their bed standing ominously tumbled and unmade, the quilt trailing onto the floor. As he raised the light and moved forward something clattered away under his foot, startlingly loud: a metal dish bounced off the wall and settled ringing on the floorboards. ‘Goody?’ he asked again, more quietly. He stood, nothing but the silence of the night and the dead air around him, the story all too easy to read. Those confident assurances, the cheerful encouragement for him to leave, turned hollow in his absence; Goody anxious, lonely, unprotected. The case of cigarettes stood empty on the chest. _I said, he’ll run out. I knew_. The lamp sagged in his hand, and at what it revealed, dread threatened to stop his throat. No. Surely. His vision wavered; he leaned closer, but there could be no mistaking the spatter of dark spots, dry as the ink in the inkwell, which marked the floorboards.

He burst into frantic action: ‘Goody,’ he called, heels thumping on the boards as he strode to the kitchen, then louder, ‘Goody!’ The house, not just empty, but abandoned, days gone. Nightmares. Walking in his sleep, and no one to turn to, no one to calm and comfort, to stop him when he …. Billy’s heart lurched, remembering other nights, Goody half-dressed and barefoot, blinded by fear, fleeing the demons which crowded close at his back. And one awful time, impossible to forget, of dark and rushing water, finding him shivering on the riverbank – _No. Not here. Not after all…_ He slammed out of the back door, shouting, incoherent as his feet carried him where he feared to go, down under the trees where the water eddied and deepened. _I was in time, then, I put my arms around him, cold and trembling, and held him steady as he woke, kept him safe_. He stood, hand on the rough bark of a treetrunk, in blank despair, the murmur of the water over the stones unheard above the ringing in his ears. _Goody. What have I done?_

 

Then above the sound of the water he heard it faint: a shout, raw and with an edge of desperation, his own name in that familiar voice, with one meaning: reprieve, the hand of fate lifted, the storm passed over to leave them unharmed. Dizzying, overwhelming relief rooted him to the spot, and he let it sink into him, flowing into his very bones like a benediction. Closer it came, ‘Billy!’; he turned, took the few steps back to the path, and there was Goody, hatless and coatless, running down towards him, face pale against the dark. 

With a sigh of his name Billy wrapped his arms around him, felt his clutch crushingly tight at his back as Goody buried his face in his neck. ‘You’re alive,’ said Goody, muffled. ‘You’re here.’ 

Billy closed his eyes, drowning in the living warmth and reality of him. ‘I saw … I thought …,’ he murmured, but the words died half-spoken. Instead his hands traced the shape of his face, pressed to his heart to feel the steady beat of his pulse, gathered him close, his whole world in the compass of his arms.

Eventually Billy sucked in a shuddering breath, and stroked down Goody’s back to relax his desperate grip. ‘Let’s go back.’ Side by side they stumbled up the path to where the lamp light spilled from the open door. Inside he saw again the disarray, the neglect, the scale of his betrayal stark. The house, their house, the home they’d built together, become unbearable, and Goody fleeing from it, the pain which echoed in the emptiness almost tangible. 

He led them to the half-dark of the bedroom and sat down on the bed, Goody still clutching his shirt, touching his fingers to the bare skin of wrist and neck as though to reassure himself. ‘Here.’ Billy gently tugged off Goody’s boots and his own, then pushed the quilt and tangled sheets to the floor and drew him to lie down just as they were, pulling the bearskin to cover them both. Under the fur they pressed together again, arms choking tight around each other, legs intertwining, feet rubbing; Billy buried his face in Goody’s hair, breathing him in, whispering ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I’m here.’ He stroked up and down his back, clutching him impossibly closer with every shiver, feeling his heartbeat gradually slow; Goody said something he couldn’t hear, lips moving against his neck. 

Emotion had left him scoured out, sweet expectation swamped by rising fear and then paralysing relief: all he wanted was to lie, the two of them under the fur like cubs in a winter den, speaking a language of touch, of mingled breath, of wordless gratitude, relearning Goody’s familiar weight against his chest, the ease with which they fitted around each other, his presence, solid and unarguable; and finally, finally, as they relaxed against each other in their tiny space, peace settled over him. 

 

After an indefinite time Billy stroked Goody’s hair and pressed his lips to his brow. ‘The horses. And I should wash, I’m filthy.’ He sat up carefully and Goody sat up too, slow and dazed as though waking from a dream; Billy held his face and kissed him to draw him back to life. ‘Fetch some water for me?’ Goody nodded, squeezing his shoulder wordlessly, and as he limped outside to where the horses stood patiently Billy heard the rattle of the pail from the kitchen.

The night was still and silent around him as he unsaddled the horses and turned them out; when he came back the lamp was lit in the bedroom, casting a bubble of warm light against the dark, the bed made once more, and a bowl of water ready. Billy shed his trail-stained clothes and left them where they fell; he reached for the cloth, but Goody murmured, almost too quiet to hear, ‘Let me,’ and carefully, inch by inch, he rinsed the grit and dust of the trail from his skin, fingers tracing after to prove that he was whole and unharmed. Billy smiled at the concentration in his face, holding out an arm or leg, shifting so Goody could reach his back, seeing the tension drain from his body as the ritual soothed and grounded him. There was no sound but the gentle trickle of water as he wrung out the cloth, the creak of the bedstead, an occasional quiet instruction, the world contracted down to this peaceful room, the scent of soap and the touch of Goody’s hands. 

When he was clean he settled back against the headboard and took Goody’s hands in his, gazing into his face, calm again in the slanting light of the lamp. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he asked, fingers skimming over the faded mark on his brow. 

Goody leaned into him. ‘I was – I thought you’d died.’ Pain flashed across his face. ‘In an ambush, an accident – I kept seeing it. If I closed my eyes …’ 

The depth of despair revealed cut like one of his own blades. ‘I shouldn’t have left you. I failed you, Goody. You needed me and I wasn’t here.’ 

Goody burrowed closer, hunching in familiar guilt. ‘It’s my failure, not yours. I’m a burden, Billy. I don’t want to be, I tried so hard, but I am. It’s a weakness in me that I can’t do without you.’ 

‘Good,’ said Billy fiercely. He raised Goody’s head to look into his eyes and stroked his cheek. ‘I shouldn’t have gone. Goody, that first night without you there… it made me think, _what if_? I could have ridden out of town without you. Had to go on without you. And then you weren’t here, down at the creek … you’re everything to me.’ His voice dried and failed. ‘I almost lost you.’ 

And it was Billy shivering at the memory of his fear, Goody wrapping him around with strong loving arms. ‘Don’t, cher’ said Goody, resting their foreheads together, ‘we don’t have to.’ 

Billy uncurled himself to pick up the bowl and set it on the chest, then blew out the lamp. He lay down again to the clink and rustle of Goody tugging off his clothes; the mattress dipped as he sat down. Billy stretched out his arms, eyes closed, and took hold of him in the dark, hands running over the contours of his body, slow and tender, and Goody’s lips found his in an unhurried dreamy kiss. Their touches were tentative, as though a month had been long enough for them to forget the pattern of their lovemaking, the sweet familiar caresses that brought gentle shivers of pleasure, the brushes and soft nips that caught the breath in the throat. There was no sound but the quiet sighs they drew from each other, arousal smouldering along a slow fuse into a blind swimming space where _I_ and _you_ began to lose their meaning, the two of them melting together until Billy was shaking apart, face against Goody’s neck, Goody gasping beneath him. And afterwards they lay, Billy’s head on Goody’s chest, a hand stroking up and down his back, and said the things so rarely spoken, voices low in the midnight dark. 

\--

When Goodnight woke the sun was streaming in through the window, turning the boards of floor and wall golden and casting bright patches across the bed. He lifted himself on one elbow from where he’d been sleeping with his face buried in Billy’s hair, and looked, just looked, at the face he’d seen so pale and cold, breathing and alive. Billy lay on his side, still asleep, limbs relaxed, breathing slow and regular, and Goodnight marvelled at him: the dark lashes on his cheek, the tiny lines etched by concentration and laughter, the flush of warmth under his skin. Last night he had seemed fragile, precious, as though he might prove a figment of imagination or dream; this morning he was real, whole, this man, unexpected and unlooked-for, who had become the core and centre of his being. Time had reset itself, Goodnight stepping into his life again as easily as he had left it, the days he had spent with Faraday winking out of existence, punctured like a bubble of soap by Vasquez’ words, spilling him back into the normal and everyday, and there was no room in him for anything but the simple joy of waking up with Billy beside him. 

Billy stretched and rolled over, blinking awake with a smile to melt Goodnight’s heart. ‘A sight to wake up to,’ teased Goodnight affectionately. He threw back the covers so they could lie in the sun, basking like cats, Goodnight running strands of dark hair through his fingers, Billy lazily stroking Goodnight’s belly as dustmotes danced in the shafts of light. 

‘Should we get up?’ he asked. ‘”The golden day stretches invitingly before us.”’ 

‘Sure it’s the only thing doing that?’ purred Billy, flexing luxuriously against him. 

‘Well, inviting is the word,’ agreed Goodnight, reaching for him. ‘We could just stay in bed all day.’ Billy’s stomach gurgled, and they both laughed. 

‘Proper food, for both of us,’ said Goodnight, ‘and then we’ll get the horses turned out and the house cleaned up, we’ll swim in the creek, and we’ll sit on the back porch and watch the sun go down.’ 

He felt Billy’s smile against his stomach. ‘Perfect.’ 

It was late enough for the early haze to have lifted, and with the doors thrown wide to let in the sun the floorboards were warm under their feet; spring air drifted through to the kitchen where Goodnight swept out a cloud of dust to billow and sparkle in the sunlight. He propped the broom and leaned on the rail of the porch, smiling as a hand appeared on either side of him and Billy rubbed up against his back like a cat, moustache tickling under his ear. Beyond the rippling fields of green wheat the plain stretched darker green to the horizon; the only sounds above the gentle rustle of leaves were the chirp and buzz of insects and the distant shout and rattle of a cart along the road. In the paddock the horses sprinted around side by side, frisking in the morning sun, and in the light of day Goodnight’s fears wisped and vanished like the dust on the breeze. 

Seeing Billy moving from room to room, barefoot in shirt and pants, hair pinned up carelessly, grin flashing whenever he caught Goodnight’s eye, seemed to him simultaneously so mundane and so miraculous: Billy pausing as he passed to stroke his cheek or slide an arm around his waist, teasing him to flights of poetry, setting his flask back down on the table. His hat and coat hung behind the door once more, his boots stood under the table, his presence reaffirmed from moment to moment by the thumps and creaks as he unpacked his gear, the chop and clatter as he split wood for the stove, and as Goodnight sorted and stacked his papers, scrubbed the table and set out the skillet, the house itself seemed to settle and relax around them like a dog whose master has come home.

 

When Billy sat down, cloth unrolled in front of him, knives laid out side by side for cleaning the familiarity of the scene filled Goodnight with an affectionate warmth. Even when they barely knew each other, Billy’s routine of sharpen, clean and oil had become part of the rhythm of each day, as soothing to him to watch as for Billy to do: he’d seen it a thousand times, beside the campfire, in a boarding-house bedroom, blades spread over the bed, at their own table, Billy’s meditative honing and polishing measuring out their life together. He drifted closer, mug in hand, to watch his expression of concentration, the reflections from the filigree handles flickering on the floor like sunlight through the leaves of a tree. It lulled him, drawing them both into a shared contemplative silence, and he didn’t realise the meaning of what he was seeing until Billy finished slicking each blade with the oily cloth, slid them into their sheaths, picked up the belt and hung it up near where his rifle sat on its pegs against the wall. 

‘Billy Rocks,’ said Goodnight. He put down his mug and came to stand in front of him, taking both his hands in his own, turning them palm-up so he could rub his thumbs over the calluses raised by hours of practice and years of fights. He’d learnt their pattern as he’d learnt the rest of Billy’s body, knew their touch as well as he knew the lines of his own face; how would it be to feel them fade, smooth out, replaced by the marks of rein or axe or shovel, Billy’s touch on his skin wholly altered? ‘You don’t have to do this.’ The words rose in him of their own volition. ‘It’s just a house, planks and nails. We can go. We can hit the trail again, go back to how we were, just the two of us.’ 

Billy shook his head, smiling slightly. ‘Goody.’ 

‘We could head east, see some places we’ve never been.’ Goodnight knelt down so he could look into Billy’s face. ‘Fighting’s your trade, your art. I don’t want to see you tame yourself, turn yourself into a caged tiger. We can go. As long as I have you …’

‘Come with me.’ Billy’s voice was quiet, loving, and he tugged him gently to his feet and led them outside once more. He gestured at the porch, laid out where it would catch the evening sun, looking across the fields and down to where the creek tumbled its way back towards the town. ‘We made this, remember?’ His arm wrapped firm around Goodnight’s shoulders. ‘You’re my home, Goody. You always have been. But the future’s here, not out on the trail, not for either of us, I learnt that. I’m still quick, still fast in a fight, but the day will come soon enough when I won’t be fast enough, and only a fool waits to see it. Staying the way we were isn’t the answer.’ He smoothed his thumb over Goody’s face, scratching affectionately into his beard. ‘This is our place, we built it together and we won’t leave.’ 

Goodnight rested his face against Billy’s hair. ‘Tell me you’ll keep your hairpins, at least.’ 

Billy lifted his chin, amused. ‘Always. I’ll keep my claws, don’t worry about that.’ Goodnight’s expression must still have been sorrowful, as Billy shook him gently by the shoulder. ‘It’s right, Goody. Change happens. You changed, you didn’t think twice about it.’ He paused, laughed softly to himself. ‘Vasquez said I was making it harder than it is.’

‘You talked to Vasquez about this?’ Goodnight’s surprise showed in his tone, and Billy’s cheeks took on an unaccustomed flush. 

‘When we got to Odessa it was … I missed you. And he missed Faraday, he worried about him all the time. So we smoked together and talked, about Rose Creek, and settling down …’

Goodnight couldn’t prevent a stab of jealousy at the idea of Vasquez sharing his confidence, the cigarette passed from hand to hand … 

Billy rested his head on Goodnight’s shoulder. ‘I told him some about how it was before I met you.’ 

‘You told him that?’ This was so unexpected, Billy’s past one of the secrets he guarded most closely, even with Goodnight, that he could only stare in consternation. 

‘A little. So he could understand.’ Billy’s lips brushed his cheek. ‘He asked me, was it easy to fall in love?’ 

‘And what did you say?’ asked Goodnight, the wash of emotion ebbing as Billy’s fingers slid under his chin to draw their faces together. His answer was a kiss, gentle at first, then deepening as Billy’s hand curled around his neck to a searching intimacy that left him breathless.

And this, this was the single gift of which Goodnight could never tire: a place of their own where they could abandon the watchfulness ingrained in them over the years, where they could be together without thought or fear, where he could take Billy in his arms, as now, and say simply, ‘Come back to bed.’

\--

Billy pushed Goody blue-eyed and laughing onto the bed and crawled over him, pinning him with his weight as his fingers worked nimbly at the buttons of his shirt. ‘Let me’ – he kissed under his jaw – ‘explain to you’ – another kiss to the hollow of his throat – ‘how much’ – his lips followed as he uncovered bare skin – ‘I missed you.’ Goody groaned, plucking the pins from his hair to bring it cascading down as Billy kissed down his chest. Warm hands splayed under his shirt as Goody ground his hips shamelessly against him. 

Suddenly Billy tensed, raising his head. ‘Do you hear someone?’ 

A shout from outside was followed by a fusillade of banging on the front door. ‘Goody? Billy? You decent?’ 

‘No!’ shouted Billy, gazing despairingly at Goodnight. 

‘Or,’ said Goodnight resignedly, sitting up and reluctantly beginning to rebutton his shirt, ‘we could have a visit from Faraday.’ 

 

When Billy emerged from the front door, tying up his hair, he found Goody standing with Faraday, admiring the grey horse on which he’d rode up. ‘She’s a pretty animal now she’s got her spirit back.’ 

‘Be sorry to see her go,’ said Faraday, stroking her nose affectionately. 

Billy came up behind them, curiosity at war with impatience. ‘What’s so important that you disturb us at …’ 

‘… eleven in the morning,’ said Faraday cheerfully, unhitching a bundle from his saddle. ‘Brought Goody’s stuff, coat ’n hat ’n books ’n all.’ 

Billy looked at Goodnight as he took the rolled coat from him. ‘I left them there,’ said Goody, ‘I was sitting reading in my stockinged feet, and then Vasquez rode up out of the blue and set the dogs barking, and I realised …’ 

‘Vasquez?’ said Billy, confused. ‘You saw him?’ 

‘I was at the cabin, with Joshua here. After I –’ he rubbed at his forehead. ‘Anyway, c’mon in.’ He took Faraday’s arm to steady him as he came up the step. 

Faraday inspected him theatrically. ‘Hey, Goody, looks like a bite on your neck, not interrupting anything, am I?’ 

‘Think your bandana’s doing its job for you?’ smirked Goodnight, and Faraday’s hand went to his neck where purple marks peeked above his collar. 

This casual intimacy between them was new and strange, and as Goody kicked a saddlebag out of Faraday’s path Billy couldn’t but resent it. It was jarring to see him here, invading their private world of peace and sunlight, and he couldn’t keep the irritation from his tone. ‘You rode out here just to bring Goody’s coat and books?’ 

‘Sure,’ said Faraday breezily, ‘thought he might appreciate having them. And Vas is setting things to rights, glad to get me out from underfoot. Hey, any chance of something to eat?’ 

‘We don’t …’ began Billy, but Goody was already clapping him cheerfully on the shoulder: ‘Vasquez not providing for you in the manner you’re accustomed to? Sit down: I think we can probably find something.’ 

 

Billy followed them to the kitchen and stood in the doorway, struggling to parse what he was seeing. Goody at Faraday’s, sitting reading when Vasquez came home? How long had he been there, to produce this easy camaraderie, this whole new level of friendship? He itched to draw him aside and ask, and the way Goody caught his eye told him his curiosity was justified, but there was Faraday, as irritating in their peaceful morning as a stone in the boot, sitting with his stiff leg stretched out in front of him, chattering and teasing while Goody cut bacon for him and fed the stove. It came as a relief when Goody asked, ‘Refill the bucket for us, cher?’ 

But to his surprise as he picked up the pail Faraday heaved himself to his feet, announcing, ‘Say, I meant to step down to the creek – think I maybe dropped my pocketknife there when we were fishing.’ 

Goody looked surprised, and it was on the tip of Billy’s tongue to say, _Sit down, as easy for me to look for you_ , but Vasquez’ voice echoed in his thoughts, heavy with sadness, _He wants to be well_ , so he swallowed it down and held the door open for Faraday to precede him to the path.

 

Silence stretched awkwardly between them: Faraday limped along, staring at the ground as he concentrated on keeping his footing, and Billy could find nothing to say to cover the fall of his uneven steps. Faraday hunched his shoulders uncomfortably. ‘Nothing you ain’t seen before,’ he said shortly, ‘me hobbling about the way I do.’

When they came in sight of the creek Billy stopped on the bank and nodded in the direction of the fishing pool. ‘Guess that’s where you were,’ but Faraday made no movement towards the spot, standing instead with one hand against a tree, watching him closely. Billy’s patience frayed and snapped. ‘Why are you here, Faraday?’ he demanded, putting down the pail. ‘What do you want?’ 

Faraday straightened up and looked him in the eye. ‘Tell you a thing or two is what I want.’ He jabbed his finger accusingly. ‘You ought do right by Goody, look after him better: he was so spooked he couldn’t think straight, and if he’s looking to me for help then he’s in a poor way.’ 

The accusation, direct and hostile, was the last thing Billy was expecting, and it grated raw across his nerves. He narrowed his eyes. ‘Is this any business of yours?’ 

‘I reckon it is,’ said Faraday hotly, ‘I’m the one was looking out for him, had him sitting by my fire, eating at my table, sleeping in my bed. Seems I was good enough to be taking care of him.’ 

Billy’s burst of surprise was almost instantly scalded away by a wave of jealousy. _In his bed? Faraday, taking Goody in? Learning his fears? Faraday, all tactlessness and crude jokes, seeing how it is?_

Faraday was barrelling on, agitation bringing colour to his cheeks. ‘Business as usual for you, ain’t it? Waltzing off with those shiny knives of yours and that fuck-off expression, all just like it used to be for you, and Goody’s here suffering on your account, not sleeping and trying to hide it.’ 

Billy stepped closer to him, guilt and resentment submerged in a wash of bright anger. ‘You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.’ 

Faraday shook his head. ‘I can see what’s in front of me. Goody and me, wouldn’t think we had so much in common, I never thought so. But I guess it shows now. You recovered, same as you used to be, and Vas, he wasn’t hardly hurt at all, and we’re just two broken things you want to leave behind.’ 

Billy’s fist came around before he saw it, far less Faraday, and it connected hard: Faraday stumbled and went down, weak leg crumpling under him. ‘Shit,’ he said from the ground, hand at his jaw. ‘D’you know how long it’s been since someone hit me instead of pussyfooting round me?’ 

Billy looked down at him scornfully. ‘Don’t know why, you’re still the asshole you always were.’ 

Faraday struggled to get his feet underneath him, defiant. ‘Ain’t scared to say what needs saying. Goody did right by me.’ 

Billy squatted down, face close to his. ‘Just how long was he over there with you?’ 

‘Didn’t say, huh?’ asked Faraday with a flash of poison. He looked at Billy’s expression. ‘Couple of weeks.’ 

A couple of _weeks_? The flame of jealousy raged higher: no wonder they seemed so easy together. And in the same bed? Why hadn’t Goody said? Why try to hide it?

A glitter of sunlight tugged at his attention, glinting from the water as it rippled past and stirring the memory of the previous night. _What might have been_ … Billy closed his eyes and his anger died with the realisation that Goody had been so much worse than he thought. Of course he had tried not to tell him, he thought himself a burden, his poor Goody, driven to distraction, finding refuge where he could. However unwelcome the revelations might be, he owed Faraday a debt. 

His silence was clearly making Faraday nervous. ‘Going to hit me again?’ Billy shook his head and straightened up. He hated the idea of it, but if Goody had found refuge when he needed it, how could he not be grateful? 

‘I suppose I should thank you for helping him.’ 

‘No call to strain yourself,’ said Faraday sourly. 

Billy tightened his lips and held out his hand. Faraday looked at it, clearly reluctant, but eventually closed his fingers self-consciously on Billy’s. ‘Can’t say that he didn’t help me out some too,’ he admitted awkwardly. ‘But still, you ought do better by him, not take off again shooting and fighting.’ 

Another flicker of anger gave way to amused chagrin: _Goody’s unlikely champion_. Billy hauled Faraday to his feet. ‘Never thought I’d feel grateful for a sock in the jaw. Tho’ if I was my old self, I’d teach you a lesson for that.’ 

Billy snorted. ‘You never stood a chance. Even if you were your old self I’d still kick your ass.’ He picked up the bucket. ‘Come on. Goody will be thinking I’ve thrown you in the creek.’ 

 

As they walked back up the path Goody was waiting by the back door, and at the sight of him, rangy and fine-featured in his hastily-buttoned shirt, eying them suspiciously, Billy felt a wave of possessive affection. He gave him a private sideways smile as he set the bucket down with a thud, and the warm crinkle of Goody’s eyes soothed his heart. 

'Find anything?’ asked Goody. 

‘Nothing I was looking for,’ said Faraday, rubbing his jaw pointedly. 

Goodnight looked from one to the other of them, then shrugged. ‘Food’s ready.’ 

Faraday sat down to eat and Billy sat opposite him, mug in hand. ‘Coffee?’ offered Goodnight from the stove. 

‘Rather have whisky,’ said Faraday. 

‘Coffee or nothing right now,’ said Goodnight, setting it in front of him. ‘And not to say I’m not grateful to have my things back, but it strikes me as somewhat odd that you’re leaving Vasquez on his own the first morning after a month away.’ 

‘He’s fine,’ said Faraday evasively, mopping at his plate with a piece of bread. ‘Like I said, he’s setting the house to rights. Don’t need me around.’ 

Goodnight looked sceptical. ‘What setting did it need? And surely you can’t be tired of each other’s company so soon.’ 

‘Yeah, well, we weren’t lying around in bed all morning like some …’ Faraday squirmed under Billy’s stony stare. 

‘What happened, Joshua?’ asked Goody severely. 

Faraday slumped. ‘We had a fight. Satisfied? Thought I’d let him cool off and he seemed happy enough to see me go.’ 

‘Joshua. Really. Less than twelve hours after he came home?’ 

Billy saw again in his mind’s eye Vasquez’ face creased in worry, Vasquez winding his partner’s neckerchief through his fingers, Vasquez hurrying home, saying simply, _he needs me_. He put down his mug. ‘You treat Vas like shit.’ 

‘What?’ squawked Faraday, outraged. 

‘You heard.’ Billy stared at him until he began to colour again, the memory of despairing words in a room lit only by the glowing end of a cigarette still sharp. ‘I can’t imagine what he sees in you, but he’s carried you every step since you opened your eyes after the Gatling gun. Turned himself into a farmhand for you, built you a house, and all you do is curse him out and complain. From what he said, you don’t deserve him, and he sure as hell doesn’t deserve you.’ 

Faraday scowled. ‘He been talking? Airing our private business?’ 

Billy’s smile of genuine humour seemed to surprise him. ‘If Goody’s been living with you, and I’ve been sharing confidences with Vas, I think we have to accept there’s not much private left for any of us.’ 

He caught Goody’s eye, and he came to stand behind Billy’s chair, hands rubbing comfortingly against his back. ‘Seriously, Joshua, what must he be thinking? What did you quarrel about?’ 

‘Some damn-fool idea about my starting a business in town…’ 

‘Sam’s idea,’ explained Billy, ‘he thinks there’s a chance to squeeze out that crooked horse-trader in Edison.’ 

'If Sam thinks so, then I’m sure it’ll work,’ said Goody, ‘and you told him no?’ 

‘So what if I did?’ snapped Faraday. He gestured at his leg. ‘You’ve seen how it is with me, Goody. I ain’t setting up as a show in the main street, people staring at me all the time so you know what they’re thinking.’ 

Billy heaved a sigh of exasperation. ‘You’re full of shit. Think you’re the only one ever had it hard? I’ve been stared at and looked down on every day since I came to this country. Turned out of more places than I can remember.’ Goody’s hand squeezed his shoulder, and Billy knew the memories he was sharing. ‘You came through some tough times, and now things are different. But they were always going to be different. You weren’t the only one hurt in the fight.’ 

‘Goody’s well now,’ said Faraday uneasily. 

Billy stared at him flatly. ‘I’m talking about Vasquez. Forget about yourself for five damn minutes and cut him some slack.’ 

Faraday shoved his chair back. ‘Didn’t come here to get spoke to like this.’ 

'Too bad,’ said Billy, deadpan. 

Goody came to sit down between them. ‘I might not have been quite so blunt, but Billy’s right. If you’re going to live in a town, you can’t spend time worrying about people’s opinions. You should give this business idea a chance. And he’s right about Vasquez too.’ 

‘Yeah, well, us, we ain’t like you two. You make it look easy, settling down.’ 

‘Easy?’ Goody's laugh was rueful. ‘What part of _nine years_ have you forgotten?’ His glance at Billy was soft. ‘We’ve had a long time for quarrels and misunderstandings and mistakes.’ 

‘And unless you ease up on Vas,’ said Billy, ‘you won’t.’ 

Goody pulled Faraday’s empty plate away. ‘You’ve brought my stuff over and eaten: now you go home and apologise to him. Hiding out here isn’t going to help.’ 

Billy stifled a smile at the sudden brisk authority in Goody’s tone as Faraday ducked his head like a mulish schoolboy. ‘And we’ll start as we mean to go on,’ continued Goody sternly, ‘Poker night: Thursday as usual, but this week it’ll be at the Elysium. Tell Vasquez.’ 

Faraday opened his mouth to protest, but Goody patted him on the arm as he stood. ‘No arguments, Joshua.’ 

\-- 

When they’d helped a chastened Faraday back onto his horse and watched him trot his mare back up to the road, Goodnight turned to Billy. ‘I don’t envy Vasquez one bit. But what were you two doing down at the creek so long? I know there wasn’t a lost pocketknife, he had it a couple of days ago.’ 

‘Talking.’ 

Goodnight raised an eyebrow. ‘That why he was rubbing his jaw?’ 

Billy sighed. ‘He bawled me out for leaving you behind, and I hit him.’ 

'Well, going easy on him’s certainly not the answer, though I might not have taken it so far.’ 

‘He said some other things.’ Billy looked down, tucking two fingers between the buttons of Goody’s shirt, then lifted his gaze. ‘Sleeping in his bed?’ 

Goodnight could never read Billy’s face when he didn’t want him to. ‘Cher, you can’t think – he tipped hot water over himself, couldn’t walk. He needed me, he does badly alone ...’ 

‘I know,’ said Billy, ‘Vasquez told us how it is with him.’ 

‘And then I wasn’t sleeping … so I was staying there. Trying not to think about …’ 

A hand closed on his wrist, warm and anchoring, and Billy smiled into his eyes. One side of his mouth twitched up. ‘And it won’t happen again.’ 

Goodnight leaned into him. ‘Is that a promise or a threat?’ 

He felt Billy’s arms wind fierce around his back. ‘You’re mine, Goody. Mine.’ 

‘Weren’t you demonstrating that,’ murmured Goodnight, low and amused, ‘before Faraday interrupted us?’ And he felt Billy’s laugh quiver through him as his arms tightened around him. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, huge thanks to wanderingsmith for comments that improved this chapter beyond recognition.

‘Think he’ll show?’ Billy looked at Goody pacing his horse beside him. The evening sun cast their shadows long in front of them, a sight familiar from years of travelling: Goody outlined in his broad-brimmed hat and flowing coat, himself sitting neat and contained next to him, on desert trail or mountain track, in early morning or at sunset; yet the rightness of it, the two of them side by side, sat like a kernel of warmth in his chest after his time alone. And now, instead of two drifters following the road, here they were two respectable householders on a sedate trip into town.

‘I do,’ said Goody thoughtfully. ‘He takes a telling. And he needs to find some kind of accommodation, they’ve both sense enough to see that.’ 

At the Elysium? Billy wasn’t so sure. The Elysium catered to the respectable echelons of society, or at least such as passed for it in Rose Creek, the drink more expensive, the girls cleaner and better-dressed, the patrons more likely to be discussing business or comparing riding horses than drowning their sorrows and brawling. ‘If we’re not letting him hide,’ Goody had declared, ‘then we’re not letting him hide. We’ll take our place in civil society.’ A fine intent, Billy thought privately, but it wasn’t the kind of place that Faraday had favoured when he was well, and he knew himself all too acutely how out-of-place a man could be made to feel in an unwelcoming establishment. Would Goody’s insistence and the lure of poker night be enough to overcome Faraday’s self-consciousness?

Poker night was their longest-standing custom in Rose Creek: from the moment Faraday had been able to leave his sickbed, when Billy and Goodnight were overwintering in Abner’s old bachelor cabin, the weekly game of cards had lent occupation and sociability in the difficult early days. It drew the four of them together, outsiders in a settled town, and as they recovered from their injuries they found the frustration at their weakness and clumsiness could be forgotten for a while with drink and jokes, bets and stories, the tarpapered walls of the cabin echoing to their laughter. Faraday had always been the sharpest player, for as long as he could concentrate, Goodnight the slyest; Billy, though less practised than the others, was unmatchable for his impassive expression, while Vasquez hid his skills under a casual affability. The stakes were necessarily small, ready money scarce for all of them, but the tradition had persisted, while Goodnight and Billy built their house, when Faraday and Vasquez moved out to the farm, becoming in its regularity an unbroken thread in the tapestry of their new lives.

‘One evening playing cards in a saloon shouldn’t be such a daunting prospect; Vasquez hasn’t been doing either of them any favours by letting him hide, even if his intentions are sound.’ 

‘No one more stubborn than Faraday, you know that.’ 

Goody shook his head with a sigh. ‘If he’d only let up a bit, he’d see that no one laughs at him….’ 

‘He did seem to appreciate a sock in the jaw more than I expected,’ observed Billy.

‘Well, perhaps we can hold that option in reserve,’ said Goody dryly. 

‘Counting on your personal charm to do the trick, are you?’ teased Billy, trying and failing to hide a smile; Goody had spent an energetic afternoon demonstrating to both their satisfaction that his attentions were for one man only. 

Goody nudged his horse closer until his knee bumped Billy’s. ‘Hasn’t failed me yet,’ he said, with the lopsided smile that Billy never could resist. 

 

‘Think he’ll really set up in business?’ They were approaching the edge of the town, riding past the workbarns and storehouses which scattered behind the commercial buildings. 

‘No reason not,’ said Goody, ‘more people he sees, the easier it’ll be.’ He gestured at a woodlot stacked with lumber and the empty corral next to it. ‘And he can rent a lot easy enough – anyone’d give him favourable terms.’ 

Billy thought he’d schooled his face to stillness, but his expression must have changed in some small way his love could read, because a pained look creased his brow. He leaned towards him, ‘Cher, I …’ but Billy cut him off gently. ‘I’ve made my peace with it, Goody. No point getting angry over what’s not going to change.’ 

Goody had been sending impassioned articles about the Chinese exclusion propositions to every newspaper he could for some months, but they both knew it was a losing battle. ‘It makes my blood boil, it’s so wrong and absurd,’ began Goody, but Billy shook his head. 

‘This is where we are; no point looking for roads that don’t exist.’

\--

They trotted up Main Street, sidewalks still busy with shopkeepers sweeping out and locking up and townswomen heading home, basket on arm, after an afternoon’s visiting. Rose Creek no longer bore any sign of the battle they’d fought: the fire-damaged buildings had been torn down and replaced, the balconies and false storefronts torn by bullets mended and repainted, and the church was as pristine white as though it had never suffered at all. Seeing it never failed to give Goodnight a tiny sense of something akin to forgiveness: they had given the town back to its citizens, and seeing them busy and cheerful, heading back to their families at the end of the working day, smoothed out just a little of the tangle of old guilt he carried in him. But the resignation in Billy’s words worried him; this wasn’t the Billy he knew, a man who had never taken anything he was given but had blasted his own way through convention and prejudice, all strength and cold determination. So many avenues were closed to him: Billy would never be a farmer in Rose Creek, never own a business, and he’d not see him labour for someone else at a job which would gradually sap his pride and self-worth. _The future’s here, not out on the trail_ , he’d said, but at what cost?

Outside the Elysium Goodnight flicked a glance over the hitching rail, but there was no sign of Vasquez’ or Faraday’s horses: well, no reason they’d be early, they were working men, not like him, sitting at a desk getting fat. He and Billy pushed their way through the fancy glass doors to find trade already lively: three travelstained preachers eating together in a corner, a tableful of town worthies – Trent from the bank and his clerk, Hinz the storeowner, Jordan from the telegraph office and Henshaw who owned the lumber mill – discussing business, and one or two respectable individuals in female company who seemed disturbed to find so many of their neighbours present. And standing at the bar, in conversation with the young barkeep, was a familiar figure in a striped shirt. 

‘Billy! Goodnight!’ Teddy’s face was open, with a solid confidence that was new.

‘Evening, son,' said Goodnight, slapping him on the shoulder, ‘or maybe ‘son’ is wrong if I’m addressing a trail-hardened veteran.’ 

Behind him Billy snorted. ‘Good to see you,’ he said simply. 

When Billy had suggested, ‘We should ask Teddy,’ Goodnight had assumed it was no more than the residual camaraderie of the trail. Teddy had been there at the beginning, of course, at Emma Cullen’s side, had fought fiercely against Bogue’s army, but in the time since had faded back into the fabric of the town, absorbed with farming and reconstruction work. Still, a month working side by side on the trail would forge a new bond of shared experience, and a new face among the cardplayers fitted well with his plan of exposing Faraday to more than his protective circle of friends.

‘Pleased to be back?’ he asked Teddy as Davy set out glasses and bottle for them. Teddy looked unusually thoughtful at the question, and Goodnight could see the passage of time more clearly with him than with those he knew better: well, he’d been young, unworldly, untried, and he’d come through the fire and got to see those who didn’t. 

‘We did right to see Callihan and his people safe on their way, and I’m glad enough to have seen beyond the town. But I don’t reckon I’m a natural for the fighting life.’ 

‘You did fine,’ said Billy. 

‘Well, coming from you that’s something. But I wouldn’t want to get mixed up in a gunfight like that every day, that’s for sure.’ 

‘Gunfight?’ Goodnight cast a sharp glance at Billy. 

‘I told you, Goody,’ said Billy mildly, ‘we had to see off a gang of road agents. At the river crossing.’ And he had, though clearly he’d been careful to downplay it; Teddy had less concern for his sensibilities. 

‘They were some nasty customers right enough; if Sam hadn’t thought to let Vasquez and Billy take them by surprise it could have gone worse for us.’ 

Goodnight knew perfectly well why Billy had spared him the details of the might-have-been of his nightmares. But here he was at his side, presentable in a clean shirt and polished boots, gazing at him with steady calm, and Goodnight could touch a hand to his back to feel him, warm and alive, and determinedly put the shadow behind him. 

‘Billy here and Vasquez, they did all the fancy shooting and throwing; all I could do was sit there like a straw target.’ 

Billy shook his head, serious. ‘You shouldn’t do yourself down; there’s not many men could stay calm and face down a situation like that.’ 

Teddy flushed a little at the praise. ‘Had Sam there to keep me from panicking. I swear he has cold river-water in his veins.’ 

‘And on the outside,’ quipped Billy, and at Teddy’s answering grin Goodnight realised he was seeing something new: Billy, open and amiable, teasing, prompting Teddy to talk. _Billy and Teddy, friends? Why not?_

But he knew the answer to that: Billy might have had friends, long ago, but he had seen them vanish – seen them die, move on, turn cold, had learned that closeness brought only loss. The life he had claimed for himself had been one of drifting, fighting for money, for pride, for his place in the world: where would he have found friends? When he met Goodnight the lesson had been long in the unlearning, months – years – to build cautious trust and confidence, until he could bring himself to believe in the awed devotion Goodnight felt for him and since then they had been all in all to each other, the two of them against the world. In Rose Creek, Goodnight’s closeness with Sam had extended to wrap Billy around, and Faraday and Vasquez’ decision to stay had inevitably brought them closer, but always it had been Goodnight leading, Goodnight all superficial charm and easy conversation, Billy allowing himself to be carried silently in his wake. This was a deliberate change, a subtle shift in the landscape, and Goodnight approved it with all his heart, even if a tiny selfish core of him regretted just a little the need to share him.

\--

‘Shall we set ourselves up?’ asked Goodnight, and led the way towards the back of the room to claim one of the well-polished mahogany tables, giving a courteous ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ to the townsmen as they passed. 

Jordan leaned back in his chair with a genial, ‘Evening, Mr Robicheaux; we’ve missed your custom at the office these past weeks. Muse not been visiting you?’ – and Goody stopped to reply, leaving Billy and Teddy to dispose themselves at the table. 

‘We should set a chair for him against the wall,’ directed Billy, ‘that should help with his hearing, and Vasquez can take the one next.’ 

He could see Goody joking, reaching across the table to shake Trent’s hand, and as he drew up his chair next to Teddy Billy tried to stifle a twinge of exclusion; this was a gathering of well-dressed men, secure in their place in the world, prosperous citizens and men of substance all. Goody fitted in with them so effortlessly, standing there in cheerful conversation, no longer the reluctant war hero simultaneously clinging to and hating the reputation he traded on: even the old grey coat was gone, consigned to the flames after it was cut off in the hurry to treat his injuries. Now Goodnight Robicheaux was a smartly-dressed man of letters, an easy peer of the upstanding citizens, and Billy’s resolution, to find his niche in the town, faltered in the face of what seemed an unbridgeable gap. Hell, these men probably still saw him as Goody’s servant, deep down: what was he ever going to be but someone to labour for them, to run their errands, take orders? He could shine his boots and sit in their company, but would he ever feel anything other than at a disadvantage? 

‘I’ll come forenoon tomorrow, Trent, to get the signing done,’ called Goodnight as he came to rejoin them, and to Jordan, ‘and I should have something for the mail to Prescott too.’ 

_Bank business. Papers_. Goody had to be the one to do it, and he’d told him he’d made his peace with it: what other choice was there? But it galled him still. 

Goodnight shed his coat and dropped it onto the back of his chair beside Billy, confiding in an undertone as he sat down, ‘I may be reconsidering taking our place in civil society already.’ A hand came to rest on the back of Billy’s chair, and the thumb stroking gently against his shoulder spoke understanding and wordless sympathy. 

‘They’ll be roping you in to sit on the town council next,’ said Teddy cheerfully; Goodnight’s recoil of horror seemed genuine. 

‘Can’t imagine a prospect worse: hours of speechifying over trivialities and petty arguments.’ He leaned back in his chair, and Billy sensed the gaze on the side of his face. ‘Settling down’s a strange enough prospect for both of us – we’re not looking to make a mark in the town.’ 

‘Be an odd thing all round if Mr Faraday is the first to do that, setting up in business,’ said Teddy. He looked at the clock. ‘Think he’ll show?’ 

‘Not the first person to ask me that,’ replied Goodnight resignedly. ‘But the best thing we can do is get a game going and quit looking at the door. Three’s enough to start, and I’m sure I can relieve you of some of the hard-earned wages which must be weighing heavy in your pocket.’

 

At first they were inattentive, all turning expectantly to the door at every new arrival, but soon the whisky relaxed them and the game began to absorb them, Goodnight and Teddy gradually warming to each other’s company. The three of them were laughing at one of Goodnight’s jokes when Billy looked up and saw the last members of their party standing at the bar Faraday glancing nervously round the room as Vasquez exchanged greetings with Davy. Goodnight waved them over, the music and conversation covering Faraday’s uneven step as he crossed the room. 

‘Ain’t much for fancy places like this,’ said Faraday, irritably shaking Vasquez’ hand from his back. ‘Still don’t see the need.’ 

‘Sit, güero,’ said Vasquez impatiently, setting down fresh glasses. 

‘Pull up a chair and deal in,’ said Goody easily, and Faraday sat, though his posture was rigid and defiant, and his scowl at Teddy unwelcoming. ‘Didn’t expect to find you here.’ 

Under his hostile scrutiny something of Teddy’s old nervousness seemed to surface, and Billy raised an eyebrow. ‘Helping us celebrate a job well done.’ 

‘Oh, do tell us more about it,’ said Faraday sourly, ‘how you took on the road agents so brave and how grateful everyone was.’ Vasquez’ expression was calm, but his fingers tapping at his glass suggested that it wasn’t the first time he’d heard the complaint. 

‘Story I want to hear,’ said Goody smoothly, ‘is how Billy and Sam got thrown in the river. That can stand as many tellings as you like.’ 

Vasquez’ face lightened a little. ‘Sam, he is a determined man; I could not stand between him and his revenge.’ 

Billy shrugged, smile playing on his lips. ‘Took both of us together to pitch this one in: should have heard the splash he made,’ and Teddy added, ‘Surprised you didn’t see the backwash from it all the way up here.’ 

Faraday yelped a sudden laugh in spite of himself and smacked Vasquez on the back. ‘Wish I’d been there to see that, right enough.’

\--

For the first half hour Faraday seemed all too aware of each passing customer, of the girls who came intermittently to hang on the back of a chair and watch, hunching into himself defensively at their gaze. But gradually the game and the conversation claimed his attention and he settled into himself, a fish in water in a saloon, even a sedate one like this, some of his old confidence and brashness rising to the surface as he flipped a coin to a girl and flirted, or taunted his companions. Goodnight saw him occasionally flex his leg under the table, saw that he led the deal with his left hand; but he also saw the grin that lit up his scarred face as the girl leaned over to whisper in his ear, heard the cackle of laughter as Billy and Teddy threw in their hands and Faraday reached for the pot. 

If there was a ghost at the feast it was, oddly, Vasquez, normally so relaxed and cheerful: tonight he was the one who seemed distracted, tossing in playable hands early to sit in silence as the round spun out, drinking more than he talked. As his partner’s expression grew more cheerful his own began to cloud, and Goodnight reckoned he could see his natural good humour worn unusually thin. He thought his plan must count as a success, but it was understandable that Vasquez might be harder to convince; from Faraday’s account their reunion had been stormy, and he could only guess what it had taken to persuade him to show himself in public. 

‘That was some news of Sam’s, though,’ said Teddy over the top of a hand he plainly hoped to ride to the finish. 

‘We’re fixing to pay a visit to Edison next week so I can see his expression for myself – can’t you just see him as a paterfamilias, sons and daughters on his knee?’ asked Goodnight. 

‘Steady on, Goody,’ said Billy, ‘he looked a man terrified at the prospect of one; if you say to him about the others, he might light out for good.’ 

Goodnight reached for his glass and tipped his chair back. ‘Sam Chisolm has faced down notorious outlaws and bandit gangs and on one memorable occasion a pack of ravening wolves; I have no doubt he’ll rise to the occasion.’ He winked at Billy. ‘If he needs a break he can send them to us – we’ll teach them to fish and to swim in the creek.’ A knee pressed against his under the table, and Goodnight felt a tiny shoot of happiness stir in his heart that Billy could share his vision of the future. 

Vasquez’ face too lit with a sudden enthusiasm. ‘We will teach them to ride, won’t we, güero? And to farm …’ 

‘I’ll teach’em to shoot if you like,’ cackled Faraday, and Vasquez nudged his elbow reproachfully, though his murmured ‘ _Idiota_ ’ was affectionate. Faraday turned back to Teddy and Goodnight. ‘Heard nothing but this since he got back. He’s not even waiting until they’re grown – he’s already setting wood by to be making a cradle.’

Goodnight remembered the carved headboard he’d slept under, animals and leaves and intricate curling branches, the secret heart of their home that he shared for a short while, and said without thought, ‘It’ll be a fortunate child lies in a cradle so prettily carved.’ Vasquez’ head snapped up, his eyes on Goodnight’s direct and openly hostile, and a new suspicion began to dawn. _Surely …_ He considered Faraday, reading his cards with a confident smirk. _What did he say?_

‘Sam has a lot to answer for, turning us all into respectable types.’ Goodnight hoped he could direct the conversation to safer ground. 

‘Who’re you calling respectable?’ shot back Faraday immediately, ‘I ain’t never been that.’ 

‘Thought you were fixing to start a business,’ said Teddy, and Faraday cast an uncomfortable glance at Vasquez. ‘Yeah, I’m thinking of it.’ 

Seeing his opportunity, Teddy leaned across the table. ‘My brother Henry’s still hankering to see the world, more since I told him about Odessa and what Billy said of San Francisco; he don’t find something better than setting fenceposts soon, he’ll up and run, and my ma’ll take it hard. If you’re really in the way of the horse trading business, would you consider taking him on? He could do the heavy work for you.’

Goodnight knew he shouldn’t interfere, but as Faraday drew breath to reply the memory of Henry’s eager face flitted through his mind, and despite himself he cut in, ‘How about it, Joshua? It’s a sound proposal.’ 

‘Didn’t say I was setting up a grade school,’ said Faraday, but there was a humour to it that was missing before. He reached for the cards, then relented in the face of Goodnight’s steady gaze and Teddy’s hopeful look. ‘I’ll give it consideration.’ 

‘I’ll tell him to drop by and speak to you,’ said Teddy, with a grateful glance in Goodnight’s direction.

Vasquez turned to look at Billy. ‘And you are settled here too?’ 

If he was surprised at the abrupt question, Billy didn’t show it, reaching calmly for his cards. ‘Won’t be leaving for so long again.’ 

‘And not on his own,’ added Goodnight carefully. ‘Before summer’s out I’ll need to go up to Prescott, and we’ll go together. I need to speak to Coolidge, he’s the newspaper editor, face to face.’ 

‘And you’ll take a knife-wielding bodyguard with you?’ Billy rolled his eyes at Faraday’s mocking grin. 

‘Like to see him try to cut my rate per column with Billy in the room,’ said Goodnight with satisfaction, knocking back his glass. 

\--

Billy smiled at his partner, picked up the empty bottle and took it to the bar: Davy was occupied at the far end, pulling out fancy liquor from beneath the counter for Trent and Henshaw to inspect, so he stood with his back to the brass rail, surveying the room. Goody’s plan had worked well, he had to admit, his own misgivings proved unfounded: Faraday seemed as easy as could be hoped, the tentative beginning of the new way they had all promised to find. But more important than that, he saw Goody, as much in his element as Faraday, spinning tales and cracking jokes, carefree and happy, and he felt a limitless gratitude that he had the chance to build the peaceful future he so wished for him. It would take accommodation: there was loss and gain in any settlement. But his choice was made, his feet set on the path before him.

‘Billy. There you go.’ Davy’s voice behind him interrupted his musing, and a fresh bottle slid across to him. ‘Good to see Mr Faraday back in circulation’. Billy reached to his vest, but Davy waved his hand. ‘On the house, boss says. Will we be seeing you boys regular?’ 

The question, echoing his thoughts so closely, brought an easy smile to his lips. ‘Yes, I reckon you will.’ 

He was about to take the bottle back when Trent’s voice, loud and confident, caught his attention. ‘…workings have been standing empty near two years, but there will be legal title somewhere: there’s no saying whose hands it might fall into. So rather than leave it abandoned we were thinking to take possession, that being nine points of the law.’ 

‘Seems provident,’ agreed Henshaw with solemn assurance. 

Trent turned back to the bar, pulling out a leather pocketbook, and inclined his head to Billy politely. ‘Evening, Mr Rocks.’ Billy nodded back. 

‘Either close it up, if it’s not safe,’ continued Trent over his shoulder to his companion, ‘or maybe think of exploiting it in counter-claim. Trouble is, we don’t have any experts can tell us what shape it’s in; not just how promising it still might be for mining, but if it’s even safe to investigate.’ 

At the words old memories blossomed back to life in his mind: of the stifling tunnel, dust thick in his throat, of hacking with a pickaxe until his arms trembled, of Yiu so long gone, and simpler memories twitched in his hands: feeling out the points of tension, of creak and shift, and hammering wood to prop, following the seam and weave of the rock to find the point of weakness where black powder would shear away the face. Twenty years gone, but it was as alive in him as if he’d walked away from it yesterday. 

‘Could we not get an adviser from Sacramento?’ asked Henshaw. 

‘I suspect that could invite a mite too much attention,’ replied Trent, ‘- to be certain we’d need to engage an engineer from Denver or beyond, and that won’t be cheap.’ 

These people – they were farmers, shopkeepers, bankers; a few miners still eked out a living from the sluices on the creek, but none of them knew the insides of the earth. _I don’t have a past to go back to_ echoed in his head, and he could have laughed aloud.

‘Hey, Billy!’ Faraday was waving theatrically at him, all self-consciousness forgotten. ‘Fella could die of thirst over here!’ Billy beckoned the girl from Faraday’s side and handed the bottle to her to take over, flickering a smile at Goody’s look of surprise; then he moved along the bar to intercept Trent before he could follow Henshaw back to their discussion.

Trent was the very image of urban respectability: squat and whiskered, his coat of sober black but with heavy bands of velvet at cuff and lapel, revealing a wide expanse of green vest and a heavy gold watchchain. 

‘Mr Trent.’ Billy had to swallow down his familiar tick of unease, willing himself not to notice the moment’s hesitation as he was weighed up, the heartiness that tried to overlay the prejudice. 

‘Back from Odessa successfully, I hear,’ said Trent pleasantly. 

Small talk had never come easily to him. ‘What you were saying just now, about the mine.’ He knew he sounded abrupt, heard his own accent clipped and correct, but memory beat stronger in him: I can do this. ‘I don’t know much about gold or prospecting, Mr Trent, but tunnelling I do know something about. If you’re planning to investigate the mine, I could go in and take a look at the propping for you, see if it’s sound.’ 

Trent’s eyebrows shot up in pleased surprise. ‘Didn’t know we had an expert so close to hand.’ 

‘Railroad construction,’ said Billy briefly, and held his head high as he waited to read the recognition and condescension in Trent’s expression, but what he saw was a spreading smile. ‘Now that’s an offer could save us a heap of expense, Mr Rocks, if you’d be willing.’ 

Billy scrutinised his face minutely, but all he read was enthusiasm and open friendliness. He let out a breath. ‘Be interesting to take a look at it.’ He paused. ‘And call me Billy.’ 

‘Matthias,’ said Trent, seizing his hand and pumping it enthusiastically. 

‘But if you’re aiming to open the mine again … you’d need to treat the mine hands better than Bogue did.’ The image of the mining camp as they’d first found it, men injured and starved, still sat uncomfortably close to home. ‘We all saw how they were; it’s dangerous work and they’d need safer conditions and better pay.’ 

Trent seemed genuinely delighted. ‘Man of ideas? That’s just what the situation calls for. Will you come and take a drink with us?’ 

And there Billy was, Trent ushering him with a hand on his back to sit down with the townsmen and talk about seams and safety, propping and shafts, conscious of Goody’s gaze curious on his back, his future unclouding before him at unsteadying speed. 

\--

‘What can they be talking about, do you think?’ Cards neglected, three pairs of eyes were trained on Billy as he gestured to emphasise a point. 

‘Maybe Trent’s looking to hire a bodyguard at the bank,’ snickered Faraday.

Goodnight itched to turn around and stare for himself, but confined himself to glaring at Faraday, nettled on Billy’s behalf. ‘They’re talking business, I imagine,’ he said firmly, ‘an area where I suspect you may be needing to up your game.’

‘There is not so much to learn.’ Vasquez lounged as casually as ever, but there was an edge to his tone. ‘Buying and selling horses, making bargains, it is not difficult. We can set up easily.’ 

He shifted in his chair, about to say more, but a new voice behind Goodnight interrupted, ‘Gentlemen?’ 

‘Mr Hinz,’ said Teddy politely. Hinz wore an expression of cheerful bonhomie, though he seemed slightly uncomfortable in formal collar and tie; he was more often seen in apron and shirtsleeves behind the counter of his store. 

‘It’s a pleasure to find you all here, especially you, Mr Faraday.’ Faraday shuffled, plainly awkward at being addressed directly. Hinz held up a hand. ‘I won’t interrupt your game, I was just taking my leave … but I understand from Davy there you’re thinking of engaging business premises in town.’ 

‘News sure travels fast,’ muttered Faraday, casting a dark look at Teddy, but Teddy just shrugged. ‘Well now,’ he began, but Hinz beamed at him. ‘I only thought to say, I have an empty lot might be suitable to your plans. Perhaps you’d like to step into the store some time and discuss it?’ 

‘I – that is – sure …’ floundered Faraday. 

‘He’ll be delighted,’ cut in Goodnight smoothly. ‘In the next few days, I should think.’ 

‘Capital,’ said Hinz, tucking his thumbs into his vest, ‘it’s a timely venture. I might drop a few words in the right ears; carriage horses could be worth thinking of, matched pairs – you’ll find some ambitious types hereabouts.’ He raised his hat. ‘Enjoy your evening, gentlemen.’ 

As soon as he was out of earshot, Faraday turned to Goodnight in panic. ‘Goody, you’ll come with me, won’t you? Handle the debating of terms and the business side of it?’ 

Goodnight couldn’t but laugh at his dismay. ‘Certainly, Joshua.’ 

At the reassurance Faraday brightened again. ‘Have to get me one of those painted signs.’ He gestured grandly, conjuring up the image of a board above a gate: ‘ _Josh. Faraday, Quality Horseflesh_. What d’ya think, Vas?’ 

Vasquez’ expressionless face made a stark contrast to his partner’s flushed enthusiasm. He said, slow and deliberate, ‘What do I think? I think that you do not need me for this,’ and in the awkward silence that followed he pushed his chair back, glanced around the table, then stood and walked away. Faraday put his hands on the arms of his chair as though to go after him, but Goodnight was already on his feet, hand on his shoulder. ‘I think this one is for me to attend to.’ 

 

He found Vasquez out front of the hotel, cigar between his teeth, leaning on the rail in the warm air. As Goodnight hesitated behind him Vasquez said to the night, ‘It is a good thing I am not a jealous man.’ _So there it is_. The words were humorous, but Goodnight recognised a glint of something else in the dark eyes that surveyed him as he joined him at the rail. 

He took out a cigarette of his own. ‘We’re better friends than we were, I don’t deny it. You asked me to look out for him, and we were both glad of it.’ 

Vasquez shook his head. ‘I do not think it is that simple. I tell him, Sam says you can make a business, and he tells me, you are stupid, I will not. Then he comes home and says, Goody says it is a good idea, I will consider it. He hides himself away, but now you say, cards at the hotel and he says, Goody told me to, I must. He asks you, help me with the business.’ Vasquez’ knuckles whitened as he gripped the rail. ‘He does not listen to me. Manuel, you are an idiot, Manuel, I cannot, but for you it is, Goody told me to, Goody showed me how.’ 

The outburst was as uncharacteristic as it was revealing, and Goodnight couldn’t but feel for the emotion that compelled it. ‘He’s looking for direction; it can’t but be a good thing if he comes to terms with the town. Billy said you faulted us for pretending everything is the same as it was.’ 

‘One night in the saloon?’ Vasquez’ tone was scathing. ‘He will not have his old life back again.’ 

‘None of us will have that. We make a new one, a life he thinks worth having. The more freedom you have, the more he’ll see you stay because you want to.’ It was the wrong thing to say, he knew as soon as the words were out of his mouth. 

‘So.’ Vasquez turned his head, the glimmer in his eye edging towards outright hostility. ‘You and Joshua, you spent the nights talking?’

Goodnight was lost at this. He could see how it might seem, but this gust of jealousy from Vasquez of all people, Vasquez, sunny-tempered, generous, undemanding, the last to claim thought or consideration for himself, was completely unexpected.

‘Nothing to say? I asked you to help with the chores, the house. When I came back home you were there: you jumped like a hare and ran away.’ 

The accusation wrongfooted him, bringing with it a flush of unreasonable guilt. ‘He was hurt, you know what he – we were helping each other out.’ 

‘You were sleeping in my bed, he said so.’

He can’t say it’s not true, and a spill of anger and shame together rises in him: anger at the unfairness of the accusation, the belittling of his motives – how can he deserve to be attacked for his willingness to help, for his sympathy for a friend’s evident need? – and shame at the weakness he had laid bare, at the mercy of his imagined terrors, utterly lost without Billy to turn to. He wants to say, _Don’t be so stupid_. He wants to ask, _Where’s your goddamn gratitude?_ Most of all, he wants to say, _I warned you, at the start_. But he doesn’t say any of it, because he, Goodnight, is not the problem. 

‘You can’t really think there was-' But Vasquez didn’t seem to be listening any longer, resentment flooding out. 

‘Billy tells me, be patient, but perhaps I do not have as much patience as I think.’ He stepped closer. ‘And Billy, he worried about you, he said that it is hard, but he will change himself for you, because you need him. Was he wrong?’ 

At that an answering twist of jealousy wrenched in him: the story of Billy’s past, so closely guarded, so hesitantly offered, the measure of their intimacy, shared with someone who wasn’t him; Vasquez and Billy together in a boarding-house room, cigarette passed from hand to hand, discussing him as a burden, a weight for Billy to carry. Of course he was jealous. But sting though it might, he had to set against it the reality of their reunion: he and Billy, finding each other in relief and happiness, filled to the brim with each other’s presence, in their bed under the bearskin, rolling in the morning sun, all ease and affection. Vasquez has hurried home, anxious and eager, only to find his partner angry and defensive, a homecoming colder than Billy’s, and nothing he could say would give comfort for that. 

Goodnight stifled a sigh. ‘Vasquez, you must see-' 

‘Must?’ Vasquez was tall, and though he didn’t usually use his height to intimidate, suddenly there was a shadow of it in the way he now stood, his smile humourless, wolfish. 

‘Goody?’ And suddenly, with no warning that Goodnight had heard, Billy was there, a hand on his arm, sliding in half a pace in front of him. He was slight compared to Vasquez’ bulk, and he had to raise his head to stare him down, but his calm composure was never other than intimidating. 

The moment of coiled tension seemed longer than it was, then Vasquez made a sound that could have been disgust or despair and wrenched away, shoulders slumping as he crossed the street into the dark.

 

Goodnight leaned on the rail again, letting the tension ease out of him. ‘Probably should have let him hit me like you did Faraday – fair’s fair. Might have relieved his feelings.’ 

‘No one is going to be hitting you, Goody,’ stated Billy flatly. His expression was dark, and Goodnight smiled gently at the swell of love that bloomed in his chest. ‘I forgot, I have a knife-wielding bodyguard, don’t I?’ 

Billy lit a cigarette and their fingers brushed as they shared it side by side looking out over the empty street. Goody blew out a stream of smoke. ‘Maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all.’ 

In answer he felt Billy press up against his side. ‘It was the only idea. You know it’s not really you he wants to hit.’ 

The door slapped open again behind them, a shaft of light spilling out, and Goodnight turned to see Faraday looking about in consternation. ‘Where the hell’s that streak of Mexican firewater? Ain’t he out here with you?’ 

‘He took off,’ said Billy, ‘was angry.’ 

‘What about?’ 

Goodnight reached out and patted him on the shoulder. ‘You. And me. But mostly you.’ 

‘Goddamn idiot,’ said Faraday, and to Billy, ‘you try to deck him too?’ 

Billy spread his hands, face unmoving. ‘Didn’t I tell you to lighten up on him?’ 

‘And didn’t I say, we ain’t all like you?’ growled Faraday. ‘Which way did he go?’

Billy jerked his chin. ‘Along past the graveyard. Shouldn’t be too hard to catch him up.’ Faraday’s mutter of _interfering assholes_ was just audible as he stumped away.

It was a delicate thing, the first tentative call of heart to heart, all too easily knocked off course, and Vasquez and Faraday never had the luxury of privacy, forced to navigate their partnership under the scrutiny of neighbours and friends: at first Faraday was barely conscious from his wounds and Vasquez too wracked with hope and despair to hide his emotions; then as Faraday recovered, spilling over with frustration and impatience and attraction and need all at once, Vasquez was left to be his tower of strength, uncomplaining and tireless. The wonder of it was, thought Goodnight, that they’d survived at all. 

Their two bonds couldn’t have been more different: Goodnight had learned again the extent of his dependence on Billy, and he hoped that he allowed Billy to lean on him a little in return; from the very first, protection and concern had been the ground from which their affection had grown. Quarrelling had never been their way, the love they’d found too precious to both of them to waste in argument or accusation. Faraday’s and Vasquez’ was an attraction forged in antagonism and recklessness, flashed to life in the cauldron of a desperate battle, then abruptly curtailed by Faraday’s selfless act and long illness; anyone could see that the two of them would always be fiery, sparks flying, anger and passion the two sides of a single card. Would they find a way to a future? Had he hindered more than helped? Only Goodnight knew how profound a debt he owed to Faraday for his silent sympathy and care, but he and Billy couldn’t carry the weight for both of them. 

Still, watching Faraday limping purposefully across the street, stopping to accost a last shopkeeper locking up and ask if he’d seen his errant partner, Goodnight consoled himself that perhaps there was something to put in both sides of the balance. 

‘Come on,’ he said, unwinding his arm from Billy’s shoulders, ‘Teddy will be sitting there alone like a bump on a log, and there’s no telling how long they’ll be.’ He paused, hand on the door. ‘Think they can fix it?’ 

‘No one to do it but them,’ said Billy, flicking the spent cigarette into the darkness.

\--

The moon was bright as they wound their way home, the road stretching clear before them, and in the quiet of the country night Billy’s plans bubbled out of him in a fire of enthusiasm. ‘I won’t be any part of an operation like Bogue’s, men deserve far better than that, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be made to turn a profit even so, and this time the money wouldn’t be heading off to Sacramento in the stagecoach. It could come back to the town – we could have a new schoolhouse, or a meeting-hall.’ He laughed. ‘A theatre, that would please Teddy.’ 

‘Now who’s going to be a pillar of the community?’ teased Goody, glancing over to see his answering smile. 

‘It’ll be slow work at first, there are likely old explosives still laid there, and I don’t expect the propping is sound, profit over safety would be Bogue’s way. It’ll take time, but they seemed to accept that …’ Billy trailed off, hearing himself chatter, and said more softly, ‘It could work, Goody. Something that isn’t fighting. Something I can do.’

Pride. So much part of him he rarely questioned it: pride in his quickness, his strength, his ruthlessness, hard skills for a harsh world, learned fast and well when pride was all he had. Labour had only ever been a source of shame, long left behind him; but now, perhaps, like coal pressed and hardened to diamond, a chance had come to bring good out of bad, to take his own memories and experience and forge from them a skill and an expertise that would allow him to meet Rose Creek on his own terms. ‘A new way, for both of us.’ 

‘About time these people saw your worth,’ said Goody, and Billy heard the slight husk in his voice.

When they came in sight of the house down in the hollow, outlined faint in the moonlight, Goody pulled up his horse and Billy did the same, the two of them sitting silently looking down at it. ‘Come on,’ said Goodnight, swinging down from his saddle, and Billy followed him a little distance to the spot where the path down to the house began. 

‘Remember the day we first came here,’ asked Goodnight, voice warm, ‘when we first thought of what might be?’ An arm slid around his shoulders, and Billy pictured it again, the evening sun, the hollow of trees beside the creek, the light in Goody’s face making the hard years fall away as he described his vision; he remembered his own reluctance to believe, to let himself think that it could be, that he could deserve it. 

He leaned his head against Goody’s. ‘And the day we finished the house, and you brought us up here to see it made real?’ 

He felt Goody’s smile. ‘All those days of cutting and hammering…’ Goody hugged him closer. ‘This business with the bank.’ 

It was like a deluge of cold water, dousing his train of warm reminiscence; ‘Goody,’ said Billy, fighting down the sense of betrayal that never truly vanished, ‘we’ve been through …’ 

Goody turned to face him. ‘I didn’t want to tell you before it was done,’ he began, ‘because this is our land, our house, not just mine, whatever the state legislature says.’ He took Billy by the shoulders, his expression fierce. ‘I won’t have you made second-class in this. I can’t get you full title to the land, though I tried, but I can make over my interest to a trust for you. It’s as official and public as I can make it: we own this place together, and if anything happens to me, it will be yours and no one can ever make you leave.’ 

Billy’s breath caught in his throat, at the anger and love that underlay Goody’s words, at the promise he was being made, at the understanding that had never failed him; and Goody’s hands squeezed his shoulders, drawing him forward into a steady embrace. 

It was so quiet that all they could hear was the distant chatter of the creek and the occasional jingle of harness behind them as the horses shifted, eager to get down to their paddock. Billy raised his head and kissed Goody lightly, then took his hand to stand beside him, looking down once more at the low dark house. 

‘Going away …’ he paused, slowly tugging his thoughts into place, Goody waiting silently, thumb tracing gently over the back of his hand. ‘I haven’t had a home since I came to this country. It’s so long ago, I barely remember. And then I met you, and we were always moving … Going to Odessa was the first time I’ve ever travelled here and come home at the end of it.’ Goody’s hand squeezed his. ‘I don’t think I’d understood what it means.’ 

And now he did: the land under his feet, a tiny part of America that was his. From his first step off the ship on shaking legs he’d walked the path in front of him through a strange land, through fear and danger, suspicion and hate, until a Cajun voice spoke and a hand took his, the lover he never expected to find, and here, finally, was where it led, to the house they’d made, labour of hand and heart, peaceful in the moonlight, to a bed where they could lie down together.

‘You’re not a weight to keep me here, you’ve never been that.’ He put a hand to Goody’s cheek. ‘You’re my anchor.’ 

Goody’s hand covered his and pressed it to his face, eyes bright in the moonlight. ‘I have never deserved you.’ 

Billy shook his head, filled up with gratitude and love, and drew him in to kiss again, wordless and tender. Then suddenly a horse snorted impatiently behind them, and they broke apart into quiet laughter. 

‘Come on,’ said Billy, ‘let’s go home.’

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diamonds are not in fact made of coal; the diamonds found in the earth's crust are much older than the layers of coal. But this was not known in the 1800s.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who stuck with this story to the end; your enthusiasm and encouragement were what kept me going.

**Author's Note:**

> Tip of the hat to thrillingdetectivetales, who wrote about a post-recovery Faraday with hearing problems in Two Thousand Little Kisses chapter 6: White noise: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8446309/chapters/19357996.
> 
> Speak to me: fontainebleau22.tumblr.com.


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